


Countervail

by Stairre



Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Eldritch Horror Themes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Galvatron is always ready to yell at gods until he gets his way, Hopeful Ending, I didn't use the archive warning for Major Character Death because it gets fixed in the first part, M/M, Matrix of Leadership (Transformers), Non-Consensual Body Modification, POV Second Person, Past Character Death, Possessive Behavior, Rebuilding, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Resurrection, Time Travel, Transformers Spark Bonds, Vector Sigma - Freeform, Who wants to see G1 Deadlock?!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:13:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28405305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stairre/pseuds/Stairre
Summary: In a future time unthinkable, Rodimus Prime falls. Galvatron rewrites the universe to get him back.---Or: Galvatron shouts at a couple of gods, swears to kill another, and finally manages to convince his fated to step off the game board with him: it's time to stop playing bytheirrules.
Relationships: Cyclonus & Galvatron & Scourge (Transformers), Drift | Deadlock & Galvatron, Drift | Deadlock & Hot Rod, Drift | Deadlock & Megatron, Galvatron/Hot Rod, Galvatron/Rodimus | Rodimus Prime
Comments: 83
Kudos: 99





	1. Galvatron

**Countervail**

**Part One : Galvatron**

–

The device works as intended.

Of course it does: Cyclonus had a heavy hand in its development process, and you count on the digits of one hand the mecha you trust – Cyclonus, Scourge, and your Prime. There are others, of course, who serve loyally, serve well, but they are not your triad, and they are not your Rodimus. Two are your brothers, if one were to use awkward and clumsy organic terms, words that do not fully encapsulate what it is to be forged of the Unmaker together, and the last is your fated match; orbiting each other in tandem, counterweights of a shared destiny.

But your counterweight is _gone,_ and you are unbalanced. It is an unacceptable, untenable situation.

You’ve already taken your vengeance, of course. Avenging your fated and revenging your pain as that bond – so deep, so bright, so _warm_ in contrast to the bitter coldness of your creation – snapped, and you were set adrift. Rage, wrath, grief, whatever one wanted to call it – it consumed you, and now you are picking through the remains, and deciding what to do next.

_Fix it._ Yes, obviously, but _how?_ You are born of the Destroyer – creation is not natural to you. _Reparation_ is not natural to you.

But you have done the impossible before – so has your fated. If you have to step out of your comfort zone, then what loss is it? None at all, in the face of what you would lose if you didn’t.

You go to Cyclonus, to Scourge, and they are the only ones who truly understand what has been ripped from you, ripped from all of them. Cyclonus goes to Soundwave, who saved as much of the late Shockwave’s research files he could rescue from Darkmount as he could in the rout of the Decepticons from Cybertron. Cyclonus and Soundwave go away for a while, taking one of the small sub-vessels, and when they come back, they have a set of schematics. They don’t tell you what they did to produce them, and you don’t ask. Whatever the cost, it’s worth it.

You order fabrication to begin, so it does. Everyone’s treading lightly around you these days, and most of the time their fear is so infuriating – are they Decepticon warriors or not?! – that it drives you into an even worse mood. Your cannon lies hot and humming on your arm, smoking lightly from the barrel from all the warning shots you aim over shoulders. It’s a waste of energon, even you know it is, but it’s this or take them apart with your hands, and that would be an even greater waste. Killing your own soldiers is not a good look, and even you in your barely-leashed anger know that.

(And Rodimus would be disappointed. He’s soft where you’re hard. Gentle where you’re rough. But the both of you are each sharp edges – Rodimus just hides it better – and you fit together like two jagged puzzle pieces.

You refuse to think of him in the past tense. You are not gone and so he is not gone. Your lives are entwined on too deep a level for him to have stopped while you carry on. He’s just – not here right now, and you have to go to him. No one argues with you on this, though most do not understand. That’s fine. Those who matter do.)

“It’s ready,” Cyclonus tells you, finally.

You bare your denta. “Took long enough!” you say, but you know Cyclonus doesn’t take offence – he knows how on-edge you are, how eager you are for the balance of your world to return.

“It’s one-way only, my lord,” Cyclonus reminds you, as though you don’t know, as though you haven't been following along and demanding updates the entire time. But you know what he’s really asking.

“I will ensure your existence,” you tell him, “one way or another.” There is no doubt in your mind of this: once you have your Prime, then you will secure your triad-mates. It’s not a question of _if,_ only a question of _when._

Cyclonus bows, but the line of his wings is steady – he never had any true doubt that you would forget him and Scourge, which is exactly how you want it. None who are _yours_ should ever doubt their importance to you. “By your will, Lord Galvatron.”

You get up from your throne. You don’t bother to check that you’re ready – you’re already ready, have been for weeks. Everything you think you might need has been tucked into your subspace and checked and rechecked and rechecked again, on and on, and you have never been more prepared for any campaign you’ve ever gone on. That restless energy that made waiting so hard finally has a place to flow, so you simply set a course for the room where the device is set up, and listen to Cyclonus following behind you.

Scourge is already there, monitoring a screen, when the two of you walk in. He looks up, red optics inscrutable, but all three of you have already had reams of discussions about this, and goodbyes – _temporary_ goodbyes – have already been made, though not very much in words. So he doesn’t hesitate, glancing back to prime the machine, talons pressing the buttons with a confident methodical ease. Scourge – and Cyclonus – will have learnt this machine inside and out by now. There is no room for error, so they will not let there be any.

After a moment, Scourge gestures to the platform. “My lord,” he says, no other words necessary.

You step up. Circuitry lights up blue beneath your pedes as you centre your frame in the middle of the circle, perfectly symmetrical patterns of sensors repeating across the ground, eight times in a round. They are dark right now, but they won’t be for long.

You look out across the room. Cyclonus’ face hovers somewhere between trusting (in you, of course) and stricken (because he’s about to be separated from you, and you would assure him it’s not forever, but he already knows that, and neither of you enjoy platitudes). You do not comfort him.

Scourge’s hand does not tremble as it takes hold of the activation lever, though you can see a slight wobbling in his wings. But it’s too late – your lieutenants will have to look out for each other, now.

“Send me there,” you command, steady. You’ve never been more sure of anything in your life. Something like bloodlust creeps up on you, clenching your fists and welling in your throat. You pay it no mind.

“My lord,” they both echo.

Scourge pulls the lever. Light flashes. Then darkness.

–

You step out to a Cybertron that’s familiar. Ruined and war-torn, but – coming in across your comms, you can pick up the chatter of Decepticon lines, far too many for the small force you’re used to. Too close, for an army routed from Cybertron. No, these Decepticons are in Darkmount, in Polyhex, in Kaon and Tarn and Kalis, in every stronghold Megatron’s army ever held.

You remain silent on them, listening only. There’s the intra-Decepticon data-net, of course, and its security coding is old, easily slipped past, and then the information unfolds before you in your HUD. You don’t push your luck – Soundwave, the Soundwave of this time, is very much alive and awake and aware, constantly monitoring, and you have full confidence in your abilities, but hacking systems is not what your speciality is – hacking limbs is far more up your alley.

The date takes a moment to translate – it’s in the old calendar system of Cybertron, the one you’ve never used in your life – and you work out that you’re about four million years too early for your Rodimus – your _Hot Rod –_ to even be alive.

You give out a wordless snarl, there in the abandoned wreck of an old apartment building you ducked into to avoid the sights of the satellites and the aerial patrols of the seekers. Your arrival has likely already been noted, as a strange energy reading if nothing else, and you cannot linger long here, though your battle-lust is begging to be allowed the chance to slip free.

But you have work to do, and so with an iron-clad discipline most don’t think of you as having, you turn away from your Unmaker-given instincts, deny them control over you, and descend down the stairwell of the building, into the basement. Down is where you’ll have to go, so down is where you’re going. Cybertron is a layered planet, and for all this is the basement of one layer’s apartment building, it has an exit to the next layer below in its depths, likely for easier maintenance access, back when this building, this city, this planet, wasn’t a slowly-dying wreck.

The maintenance hatch, opening out into an alley, is partially blocked by debris. You resist the welling urge to shoot it free – you intend to make whatever trackers that you might pick up have the hardest time of it as possible – and simply use your considerable strength to shove your way out, the rubble clacking off your armour like so many pebbles, not the weighty lumps of half-melted slag they are.

You pick your way down, hovering with your anti-gravity mods when you can, determined to leave as little trail as possible. In some places it’s inevitable that you have to force your way through obstacles that the half-collapsed structures throw into your path, but these places are few and far between, and small collapses happen all the time. You are not a mech given to _hope –_ far too flimsy and unreliable a notion to place faith in – but once you’ve done all you can to conceal your path, there is not much else to lean on. There is a plan, of course, but you are alone, with not even Cyclonus or Scourge to stopper any holes in the on-the-fly ruse you leave in your wake.

You have overshot, and it’s – not a good feeling. You are not a mech who _misses._

But, perhaps, this is its own blessing – not that you have ever received any blessings in your life, Primus rather wants as little to do with you as possible, though you do tend to count your Prime as one, though that was hardly the Great Creator's intent – you are _early,_ and there is time – a _lot_ of time – for you to stack the deck in your favour.

You care not for the greater game this war is, not really, though the thrill of battle beats heavily through you. But as far as causes go? No. You are not Cybertronian – and they are not your priority. Once you have those who are yours – your Cyclonus, your Scourge, your Rodimus – within your reach again… well. The rest of the universe can _burn._

But, though Cyclonus and Scourge will likely care little, your Prime will. He is of Cybertron, and _he_ will care for the greater schemes at work here. You have spent long years persuading him around to the idea of refusing to play the games of the gods, to _stepping off the board,_ and forging his own path, one you want to walk with him, and he has spent those years in agony over the thought of abandoning his _duty._

Not that being dutiful and loyal is a flaw – just look at your Cyclonus – but the role he was cast in, and the role _you_ were cast in… you are _not_ a _slave,_ and even less than that are you a slave to _divine fate._ Your Rodimus is your fated match, but you refuse to be his fated death, and him yours. Not when there are so many other paths to take.

It would indeed be an honour to die by his hand – but you rather think that you would spit in the face of Primus and Unicron, and take his hand in yours instead. _They_ do _not_ rule you, either of you, not if you have anything to say about it.

Your Rodimus will want to preserve the lives of those who would martyr him in a spark pulse, you know he will. And _you_ want him to break free of the chains of destiny with you, want to see him the ruler, not the servant. Before – in that now long-lost future that _will never happen –_ it had seemed a pair of wants too incompatible to mesh. But – you think you have a compromise, pulling together in your tactical processor and strategic units, one only possible because of the new pieces on the board.

And this overshot, perhaps even engineered by the very Creator you’re about to challenge? _This_ is the _perfect opportunity._

–

Down you go, so deep the light fades to total nothingness, then deeper still to where faint bio-lights begin to line the walls, some the normal pulses of life, some forming ancient glyphs you can’t read, that seem to sting your optics to so much as glimpse them, too holy for your unholy spark.

It’s not an easy trek – the populous was _never_ meant to come down here, and the very halls themselves rearrange to make your journey difficult, turning you around, trying to get you back up when all you want to do is go deeper. Your Prime could walk these, you think, and would find his way with ease, but no other unchosen could, and _especially_ not you and your triad.

You’re stubborn, though, and, in a twist of strange fate, do not actually mean harm. Sure, you blast your way through when nothing else works, but you are now far from the old layers, deeper than the deepest mine, and closing in on the core. Time has passed, how long you could not say, but whatever length it is means nothing. You would never call yourself _patient –_ you are nothing of the sort – but your goal is getting closer, no matter what diversions are thrown in your way, and you know that hastiness on the final stretch makes plans fall apart. You cannot afford failure in this endeavour, not when the price is so high.

Finally, you step into the Sigma Chamber. In its dormant state, it’s nestled deep within the heart of Cybertron. Once, it rose only at the word of the Prime, the room where Vector Sigma floats ascending from the core, the conduit between the god sleeping beneath and the prophet walking above, ready to spark more life. You have wondered, before, why Primus chose to take on the role of patron to the Cybertronians, then-slaves to the Quintessons, empowering a champion and giving them the final push they needed to unite against their oppressors and rise up.

It doesn’t truly matter to you, of course, but it has been a source of conversation before, between you and your Prime. You’re of the view that Primus desired worship, setting himself up as a saviour, even though he knew that in doing so he would also bring the Cybertronians into the sights of his brother, the Chaos Bringer. Your Prime takes a somewhat more forgiving view of the whole matter, determining that Primus truly _does_ love them, in his own way, and to that you say that the love of gods is unrecognisable to mortals, even cruel, perhaps.

_(“If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand,” your Rodimus recites at your words, and by the name in the middle, you know it is a quote of some kind from his precious humans._

_You grunt. “Apt,” you say begrudgingly, “for an organic piece.”_

_He looks at you, your Prime. “I don’t understand you,” he says, honest like a vibro-knife through the chest plate is honest, and his optics are bright and piercing, “and yet I do, so very deeply. I get you on a spark-deep level, but my mind still reels when I try to put it into thought, into words. Do you get what I’m saying? No one else does.”_

“ _Fated match,” you say, and it’s both answer and question,_ _the pivot on which your worlds spin_ _._

“ _I thought you hated chains,” your Prime says._

“ _You are not a chain,” you say, struggling to put it into words. “We are chained together, though. Break them with me, Prime. I know you can. I know you_ _ **want to.”**_

“ _Duty and desire,” he murmurs to himself. Then, to you, and not without regret, “I have responsibilities. I cannot – you_ _ **know**_ _that._ _I cannot love like you can, with absolutely everything, with all of me._ _”_

“ _Only because you do not_ _ **own**_ _every bit of yourself,” you say, frustrated. “Stop giving others pieces that belong to_ _ **you.**_ _Stop giving what they will not treasure, or keep safe, or_ _ **give back.**_ _That’s what you stumble on – I belong to myself – and_ _ **you**_ _do_ _ **not.”**_

_Your Prime goes silent. Then he leaves. The next time you meet, you do not speak of it to each other, excepting that, later, several years later, your Rodimus says, “You were right,” only hours before he’s taken from you._

_You’re going to get him back.)_

Whatever ancient notions passed through the head of the god, there’s only one thing you’re interested in now. You step up to the dais, and you can feel the weight of the stare of Vector Sigma, and through it Primus. They’re wondering who you are. They’re wondering why you’re here. They’re wondering why you haven’t attacked, as your Unmaker essence screams at you to.

You have no interest in any of that. Quelling the battle-lust writhing in your head, you look directly at the floating golden core of the supercomputer, no matter how it hurts, lancing through your processor like fire. You are an anomaly in space-time, and they can sense that, so there’s no point in wasting time on grandstanding and exposition, not when you’re so close.

“I want the spark of Hot Rod,” you command to Vector Sigma. “He who will one day be Rodimus Prime.”

“ _ **You have no power here,”**_ Vector Sigma intones, _**“Spawn of the Chaos Bringer.”**_

“You will give him to me,” you say, voice hard, steady. “Or I will liberate him by force.”

“ _ **You talk of freedom, but you were forged to lay chains,”**_ Vector Sigma replies.

You snarl. “I was forged _in_ chains,” you snap, “and have broken them, link by link. I lay them not – and will not let _you_ do the same.”

Vector Sigma does not physically move, but make no mistake – it startles. Your mouth twists into a bitter half-snarl, dark humour lining your face. “What?” you ask, low and almost soft, if not for the way the air trembles, that space between the risen axe and the neck on the plinth, a split second before the swing. “Never thought of it like that?”

“ _ **The Great Creator is the Breaker of Chains,”**_ Vector Sigma snaps back, its voice still monotone, but the spiritual energy pulsing from it writhing. _**“Twisted are your words, as twisted as your spark.”**_

You bare your denta, too open and too fierce to be called a grin, but it’s a snarl of vicious triumph nonetheless. “You call them your children,” you say, and in _this_ you are offended, for you are a leader, and you don’t break faith that is placed in you, however little from those who follow that you do not call yours, however big from those you do, “but you push them around like pieces on a game board, like they’re not people, like they’re your toys, and you’re free to play your game. Don’t try to deny it.”

Vector Sigma trembles, and through it you can feel the gaze of Primus resting heavily upon you, scorching, but you refuse to look away. _ **“The Children of Primus are loved,”**_ says Vector Sigma, which, of course, is a diversion, not a denial.

“Your love is not their love,” you reply, the words of your Rodimus echoing in your head. “And,” you acknowledge, “perhaps I am uncharitable – charity has never been a trait present within me – but if you claim to love them, then you should wish for another path than… _this.”_

_This_ being the war fought above right this very moment.

Vector Sigma and Primus are silent.

“ _Pathetic,”_ you scoff. “So assured of your wisdom, oh _Great Creator,_ that you fall victim to the type of fallacy only accessible by the very intelligent – that of thinking that if you do not have the answer, that must mean that nobody else does, for _you know best,_ right? You say you love, and with one hand offer salvation, and behind your back you hold the whip. How – ”

“ _ **Enough!”**_ Vector Sigma booms, and this time the rage is palpable. _**“There is no whip! You do not understand how it pains the Great Creator to dictate lives – but your own creator – the Unmaker – the Eater of Worlds – sacrifices must be made – ”**_

Wrath thrums through you – in your mind, there is the echo of your Rodimus – _duty and desire – I cannot love like you can – you were right –_ and it’s his pain, the pain he bore for it was his _duty_ to bear it, and how you would have lifted the weight from his shoulders had you been able, anything if it would have stopped your Prime, your fated, _yours,_ from thinking he _had to die_ to save his ungrateful people, if it would have stopped the worries, the fears, the sleepless nights as he grappled with the shackles he kept clasped around him out of _love –_

“ _Give me my Hot Rod!”_ you howl at Vector Sigma, at Primus, at the universe you rewove to thread together a new future. “Give him to me! He will never serve you as your thrall again!”

Vector Sigma silences like a trap snapping shut. For one wild moment, you wonder if you’ve punctuated your yelling with a cannon blast, like how you do sometimes when your rage blurs your vision like this. But, no, your cannon is not smoking, though it is hot, capacitors humming on your arm. You vent heavily, gnash your denta, snarl, and wait for a response.

“ _ **Why?”**_ Vector Sigma asks, finally. _**“What is he to you? He, whose spark lingers within me even now, the next Prime. I neither dictate nor foresee the Unmaker’s actions – he is beyond my sight – so what would bring the Herald to come to me, to beg for one who would be an enemy to him?”**_

“He – ” The words get stuck in your intake, because _how_ could you ever put Rodimus Prime – Hot Rod – into words? He is your equal, your match, your nemesis, the counterweight of your shared fate. Words do not encompass enough meaning to hold just what he means to you. “He is mine,” you settle on. “I am his. Give him back!”

“… _**Curious,”**_ Vector Sigma says, almost wonderingly. _**“You claim mutual and reciprocated possession. But my Children are not possessions, Herald.”**_

“I have given him more respect than you ever have,” you grit out, your rage going low and seething. “More freedom. More choice. I want him for _him,_ not for the blazing tool you would turn him into, sword and shield and sacrifice alike. If I am a possessor, then I am a kinder one than _you.”_

Vector Sigma goes silent again. This time, you have not the patience to wait on pathetic old gods.

“Give him to me,” you say again, but this time your rage has sharpened to a blade, and you pick your words precisely, knowing that if you are to leave with your Hot Rod, then you must convince Vector Sigma – and through it, Primus – that there is more to gain than to lose here. “Together, he and I have the power to seal shut the Unmaker’s entrance into this universe, destroy his physical form here. Lose him as a leader, gain him as a saviour for those who did not yet know they needed saving. Whatever plans you had for him – they will not matter in the face of extinction. _Give him to me._ _”_

“ _ **Prove it,”**_ Vector Sigma declares. _**“Prove your words – show evidence of this bond, this power, this… trust – and, should they be true, show me your… plan. What do you propose, Herald, that you say we have not thought of?”**_

This is not yet a full victory, but – you’ve got a chance, Vector Sigma is _listening._ And you have just the thing for this, something absolutely unmistakeable.

Out of your subspace, you pull the fractured Matrix of Leadership, your Rodimus’ spilt energon still staining it.

Vector Sigma – _hisses –_ that’s the only word you have for it, something between high-pitched static and booming thunder. You ignore it, curl your fingers into the crack, and it’s a broken thing, now, but it still holds echoes of its power – of its _Primes._

The holy fire trapped inside it is all burnt out, but the warmth still lingering flows out like wisps of light, glowing smoke, and it should hurt you, and it does, but your Rodimus’ spirit is the strongest and most recent, and with every lance of pain comes the cool soothe of healing. There is no way in all the universe to deny that you – _you,_ made of the Unmaker himself – was held precious in the spark of the last Prime.

And Vector Sigma _knows it._ The Matrix is an extension of it, as Vector Sigma is an extension of Primus in turn. Even though this Matrix is broken and out of its time, there is a fractured resonance between the two that even you can sense, heavy in the room like the air before a storm.

“Good enough?” you ask, though you know the answer. There’s no small part of you that is smug at having the perfect artefact that would shut this foolish god and its conduit up. Petty, perhaps, but you are not above pettiness.

“… _**How do you seek to unmake the Unmaker?”**_ Vector Sigma counters, but you’ve shaken it, you know you have. You sneer, even as you are unsurprised. Unicron is Primus’ equal and opposite, and they are sworn enemies – Vector Sigma had no reason to truly _believe_ you, not until you unveiled the Matrix you removed from your Rodimus’ grey frame, too cold and still, broken into pieces. You’d shattered the cause into more pieces, but it didn’t bring him back.

“You really think that our joined sparks – creation and destruction, order and chaos – could not bring the Devourer to his knees?” you scoff. “It has been done before – my Hot Rod did it alone, not even yet a Prime – but now he is not alone, and will be stronger than ever. Give him to me, and in trade we will excise his doorway into this universe. No more, no less. My Hot Rod will never be your Prime, never your thrall, but never your enemy. Unless you make it so. Infringe upon him, and I will tear you apart, circuit by circuit, and revel in the time it would take to destroy an entire planet – do not doubt me!”

“ _ **I do not doubt you, Herald,”**_ Vector Sigma hums. _**“But Rodimus Prime… he was meant to unite my Children once again, when their war had them tired, when they were small and afraid and ready to rebuild upon their own ashes. What – ”**_

Righteous fury bursts forth from your chest, and you’re interrupting Vector Sigma before you know it. “So you planned out the demise of over ninety-six per cent of your children?!” you shriek. “And you call yourself _merciful?_ Their _saviour?_ You and your brother are more alike than you know!”

“ _ **They are not trapped on this path!”**_ Vector Sigma snaps back. _**“They can choose to stop at any time – but we have to plan for the most likely course they will take! What say you, Herald? Are we wrong for that?”**_

“Only that if you truly cared for them, you would intervene!” you shout. Championing the Cybertronians is _not_ what you were ever made to do, and such care does not live in your spark, but now you’re _angry,_ and being angry at gods is a familiar feeling, one that is not so strange. “Did you not take on responsibility for them when you gave them the power to resist the Quintessons? When you created a Matrix that would choose a Prime to be your voice amongst them? Could you not _tell_ the current Prime to stop, offer the power to make it so, make visits in dreams to make both sides _listen?_ Could you not have urged your past Primes to right the wrongs pervading their society, the inequality that led to war in the first place?”

“ _ **They have free will!”**_ Vector Sigma argues. _**“To interfere and tell them how to live is to prevent them from living.”**_

“An organic progenitor prepares and advises their progeny as best they can before setting them loose into the universe,” you argue back. “You patron them throughout their resistance, and instead of helping teach a race of former-slaves how to live free, how to live in equality, help to build them up before you let them go, you abandon them to build a society upon the only foundation they know: the oppression and segregation forced upon them by their _masters._ If you were one of my soldiers, I would charge you with dereliction of duty!”

For the third time this day, Vector Sigma falls silent. You heave through a few cycles of vents, cooling your internals, your processor, sparks flashing at your helm, overcharge escaping where it can. Your systems are saturated with plasma from your dip in the lake on Thrull, and what would have killed a Cybertronian has only enhanced your own frame, but you pay for that strength with overheating and overcharge that’s painful to disperse. Nothing you can’t handle, of course, but it makes your triad and your fated worry, and you hate being worried after like you’re a new-spark rather than the great warlord you are.

“… _**What would you have me do, Herald?”**_ Vector Sigma speaks again, and its voice was not made for emoting, but you know you have shaken it, have shaken the god sleeping in the core. _ **“What’s done is done.”**_

“Have I not proven what’s done can be _undone?”_ you demand. “Or, more immediately, that you can still steer a new direction? They have not reached the end yet. Such pathetic passivity – one would wonder why my maker ever bothered with you at all, when you might as well be rolling over and letting him march on uninterrupted!”

“ _ **He is my brother,”**_ Vector Sigma says, but you suddenly know that it is not Vector Sigma who is speaking.

“So?” you growl, refusing to be cowed by the god now talking to you directly.

“ _ **He is my brother,”**_ Primus – through his conduit – repeats. _**“My equal, my match, my counterweight.”**_ You freeze at the repetition of your own thoughts, words you did not say but this god still heard. _ **“Creation and destruction, order and chaos, hand in hand. Could you destroy your own?”**_

No. You could not. You are not a mech given to compassion, to empathy. But – you _understand,_ now.

You scowl anyway. “Give me my Hot Rod, then,” you say, “since you _understand_ so deeply.”

“ _ **He is still not a possession,”**_ Primus says, but it’s tired, now, conflicted.

“So set him free,” you say, and glare.

Primus hums, deep and resonant, and floating above the dais, Vector Sigma begins to spin, a fierce glow emanating from within. There is no empty frame, of course, in which to ignite your beloved’s spark, but, should it be made so, one is not truly necessary.

A shape coalesces, and you feel a light tug at your mind, drawing out knowledge of the frame you’re so familiar with, the schematics you know back to back. You snarl at the intrusion, though it was light, and feel a wave of non-regretful apology wash over you. That angers you more, but soon you’re distracted by the form before you, and the way it’s becoming familiar.

He’s small, is your first thought, the frame you only glimpsed a couple of times when you were still new yourself, the one your nemesis missed with a grief that you could never truly comprehend, but you shared in his quiet anger anyway. _This_ frame is your Hot Rod: your beloved as he wanted to be. No matter the instinctual respect you held for the heftier frame of the Prime he had become, the weapons and the armour, it was never _your_ body, so it was never your decision how to feel about it.

He blinks online, and, _oh,_ his gaze is so light, so unknowing, _trusting,_ and you’re not here to _hurt_ him, but there’s never been this total innocence cast your way before. He’s new, brand-new, but – you can’t afford to treasure this, the way it should be treasured, and the broken Matrix is still held in one hand, and you know what you must do.

Still. You hold out an arm, free hand open, palm up, and this young Hot Rod takes it, because he has just been forged by his creator, and his creator has just entrusted him to _you._

His hand is small and warm in yours, unhesitant, oblivious to the violence your hands have wrought, none of which you regret or apologise for, but suddenly you can’t help but feel that you cannot stand this youth. _Your_ nemesis had a weight to him, on him, in his gaze, and you _never_ want him to break under it, but you – you cannot bear this _alone._

You pull him closer – Vector Sigma and Primus are silent, though watching – and he steps into your chest. You hold the broken Matrix away from his plating, not obviously, but still carefully. He’s against your chest, your sparks pulsing as one, his unknowing and yours too knowing, and Hot Rod is so small in your arms.

You are not the apologising type, but, still, regret for lost innocence and things that could have been – both things you’ve never given weight before, and it’s typical that you would only do so now, when it concerns your beloved – makes you murmur, with real honesty, “I’m sorry, Hot Rod.”

He looks confused, blinking, opening his mouth to speak his first words, but they will forever remain lost. You let go of him suddenly, press the broken Matrix into his hands, which take it without comprehension, and step away to watch as the Matrix spills out light once again, and his frame bends suddenly, under the weight of future memories, shoulders sagging and optics shuttering, faceplates twisting with all the horrors yet to be.

There’s no physical reformat, not this time, the Matrix’s power has been drained too far, and this is not the choosing of a _Prime._ This is the re-creation of _the Chosen One._ There have been many Primes, but there will only ever be one Chosen One, meant to shine the light that would chase away the dark.

You were born in the dark, and have spent a lifetime stretching your fingers out towards the light.

Hot Rod – this is not Rodimus Prime, though he is now _yours_ once more – opens his optics, the shutters sliding back to reveal the fright of one who has come through death and out the other side. His frame trembles, slightly, with left over battle programming, the sharp echoes of an older mech rattling about in his new frame.

His gaze falls upon you. _“Galvatron,”_ he breathes. Then he swallows, and he looks about. “What – what did you do?”

“I brought you back to me,” you say, and the _relief_ that courses through you equals the intensity of the rage and the grief that has consumed you ‘til this moment.

His fingers clench for one moment around the handles of the broken Matrix, now nothing but a useless bauble, and then he drops it. It shatters on the floor of the Sigma Chamber.

And then he’s in your arms again, still small, but so very much himself, so very much _your Hot Rod._ His face is pressed into your neck cables, your hands clutching his back, finger-pads pressed into the central connection joint of his spoiler wings, and your EM fields are meshing at the edges with all the things left unsaid and now brewing in the air.

You croon a wordless sound at him, a comforting noise that rarely leaves your vocaliser. He’s _exactly_ where he belongs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's kick off 2021 with some GalvRod, shall we?
> 
> The poem Rodimus quotes is _Wishbone_ by Richard Siken. It can be found [here](https://anotherhand.livejournal.com/86133.html). (It's easier to read if you click the "readability" tickbox at the top).
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](https://stairre.tumblr.com/). Come and say hello!


	2. Hot Rod

**Countervail**

**Part Two : Hot Rod**

–

You wake. You’re… not supposed to.

You’re dead, or you died, and now you’re awake again, but you’re not sure yet whether waking means life, or whether you’ve awoken into death, and into the Well of All Sparks.

You remember dreaming, being somewhere in-between, but you can’t remember what you dreamt, or whether _dreaming_ is merely the closest thing your mind can associate with what you were doing – if the state of being dead actually counts as an action in any way.

You shudder, sway, and the weight of death is not as heavy as the weight of life, but the weight of _dying_ threatens to topple you. You recall – too much. Pain, regrets, the way you thought to yourself _he was right_ over and over again, unable to put into words the sorrow you felt as you grieved your own death before it even happened, lying there alone, knowing – _knowing –_ that Galvatron would be the one to find you. You grieved a life you never got to lead, and you grieved it for you, but you also grieved it for _him._

Your optics are already open, no need to do that, but what you’re seeing _can’t be real,_ please, no, _it can’t be._

“ _Galvatron,”_ you breathe. No, how could death have taken him, too? Galvatron had always seemed unbreakable, too strong to be defeated by death, so what happened between your death and his? You look around, lost, frantic. The golden circuitry-laden arches of the Sigma Chamber are hauntingly familiar, though you know you’ve only ever been in here once in person. Fractured echoes of – so many lives – have assured a ghostly familiarity, though. “What – what did you do?” Please, may he not have –

“I brought you back to me,” he answers, voice strong but for the way it belays the tail-end of desperation, the exhale of relief from vents after the battle is over. His optics burn bright, no tears, but he isn’t the type to cry. You’re not sure he even _can._

Your bonded displays his softer emotions in subtle ways, more subtle than amongst your fellow Autobots – it’s in the line of his shoulders, the curve of his mouth, the brightness settings of his optics. His face is angular, the micro-expressions different than the rounder faceplates you were raised seeing: sharp planes and deep-set visual relays, the shutters thicker to better protect the optics beneath, as their Quintesson creators dictated that ‘Cons should have in comparison to their ‘Bot counterparts. All classic Decepticon features, though your beloved barely counts himself as one.

Right now, Galvatron’s face is that type of intense that he goes when what he’s actually feeling would manifest on anyone else’s faceplates as an open softness. Nothing about Galvatron is visibly vulnerable, not to anyone who doesn’t know him very, _very_ well. If you had to make an estimate, only yourself, Cyclonus, and Scourge would be able to read the slightly-broken burning love that the line of his mouth and the brightness of his optics is screaming out. Perhaps Soundwave, too, but only because he’s a telepath and he can cheat.

_Something happened,_ you think, and then your own stupidity nearly makes you hit yourself. Of course something happened: you _died!_ And you _knew_ that it would hurt Galvatron, would snap your fledgling bond, the one you’ve kept secret from all your fellow Autobots because they could not possibly understand. And you _know,_ deeply and certainly, no room for doubt, that Galvatron is capable of things unthinkable. You don’t mean immorality – though Galvatron’s moral compass is, eh, _askew_ at best – but things no one thinks to try because they’re so far out of the realm of possibility that people don’t even conceive of them.

Galvatron’s intense – two hundred per cent effort one hundred per cent of the time, turned all the way up _intense._ He doesn’t so much as _think_ in half-measures. So – what does he mean? _I brought you back to me._ That’s – that’s –

You become aware of something. You glance down, just one moment, still trying to wrap your head around what’s happening, because you’re sure you died, but now you’re not so sure that you’re _dead._ If Galvatron hasn’t – done the unconscionable – hasn’t _killed himself to join you –_ then – what – ?

The Matrix, broken, cracked, the way it became when your own chest armour broke and cracked – it’s hanging from your fingers, spent and useless, and suddenly you realise that it isn’t whispering, isn’t tempting, isn’t remaking you or urging you not to let go, or, or, or –

You’re not Rodimus. Not the Prime. Your frame – oh, your frame – it’s –

You clench your grip one moment, riding the wave of something too big to be called anger, too wide to be called fear, and – you drop the Matrix, a part of yourself marvelling that you can even think to do it, let alone feel, as though you’re outside of yourself, your fingers loosen, and the Matrix falls, you watch it, a noiseless ringing in your audios, gravity slow and heavy, and it _shatters_ on the floor.

You’re Hot Rod. You’re… just Hot Rod.

You step forward, stumble, and you lived centuries in this frame, but it’s still unfamiliar somehow, your own small ghost. But – you _aren’t dead._

You’re not dead. And Galvatron isn’t, either.

_I brought you back to me._

_How?_ you want to ask, but no words make it past the thought of them, dying in your vocaliser. _Why_ is a stupid question – you _know_ why, even if you still stumble over the thought of someone like Galvatron _wanting,_ so deeply, someone like _you._ You’re fragging _bonded_ to the mech, that tattered thing reigniting in your chest, severed by death yet still stringing you together, woven with pain and grief and anger and hope, and you’re going to have to re-bond if you want what was there before back, it’s been _damaged,_ but –

But you’d thought it was all gone, and Galvatron went and proved you wrong.

_I was dead,_ you think, and it’s an abstract thought. You remember dying, the act of. You don’t really quite remember being dead, the state of. There’s a pain here, a nightmare you know will have you screaming awake for millennia to come, one only kept at bay right now by cold shock, because how can you have died and yet live to think about it? No mind was meant to do that.

You push it away, collapsing right into your beloved’s arms, so big now, as big as you dreamt, curling around _Hot Rod_ in a way they never could have around _Rodimus Prime._ You’ve wanted this for – for – since the beginning. You’ve wanted Galvatron to love _you,_ not the mech the Matrix made you into.

His EM field is so strong, so big, and you plant your faceplates straight into his neck cables, hiding from the world with a fear that’s in turns uncharacteristic and _too_ characteristic. _Fear_ has been an undercurrent for a long time now – fear of failure, fear of the weight and expectations dumped on your unready shoulders, fear for your friends and their safety – but, also, say it low… fear of losing yourself in the Primacy. Fear that _Hot Rod_ would die for good, or would forever remain unwanted in comparison to _Rodimus Prime._

He croons in your audios, a rare sound, and you just – let it wash over you. _Please,_ you think, not yet able to give consideration to the unknown wider circumstances, letting yourself be selfish for just one moment, _let me be enough._

–

You barely register it when Galvatron pulls you with him, out of the Sigma Chamber – leaving behind the floating Vector Sigma, who is silent, and the Matrix on the floor, which is shattered – and into the spaces between Primus’ internal systems. You stumble with him, reluctant to let go, to face the world outside of his arms.

Galvatron simply adjusts for your clinginess, swinging you up in a way he couldn’t have before, your pedes leaving the floor, his arms coming up to hold you properly, supporting under your thighs, around your back, and leaning your weight over his shoulder, putting it in line with his own centre of balance.

This way, you can no longer hide your face in his neck, but – his EM field is still surrounding you, his arms are circling you, and your fingers are still clinging onto the edges of his armour panels. A part of you feels pathetic, weak, and you _know_ your bonded despises weakness, but you just cannot help it. The world is just all – a bit too much, right now, and you feel so _safe,_ even though you’ve spent years being told you shouldn’t.

Galvatron walks, and you get carried, swaying a little at the motion as he ascends up from the core. It’s a clear path, easy, stairwell to corridor to another stairwell, on and on. Your lover huffs when it first happens, derisively, but doesn’t say anything, so you let it leave your mind. Whatever it is, it’s not important.

Galvatron doesn’t exclude you from anything that concerns you, not like how your own command staff used to try to do. You knew it came from a place of not wanting to put more on your plate than you already had, but all it ever ended up doing was leaving you blindsided whenever something happened that meant the situation now required your immediate attention, or stressing you out because people were hiding something from you that would probably come around to affect you at some point, and you _knew_ they were, but you couldn’t make them talk.

Galvatron never does that. You get the truth from him, every time, unvarnished. Sometimes his words border on hurtful and rude, but between the Unicronian triad’s brutal honesty, and the sugar-coated, if well-meaning, counsel of your high command team… well. You know which one you prefer, even when it cuts deep.

Time passes, and the gait of Galvatron’s walk and the way you bob slightly up and down in his grip as he keeps ascending becomes almost meditative. Finally, though, your whirlpool of conflicting emotions settles into a type of calm. There’s still swirling currents beneath, but now you can think clearly, can push them off to a more suitable time. You indulge in the tenuous peace for a little while, guiltily, because the times when you get to pretend that you’ve got nothing pressing to do are rare, but eventually duty conditioned into you since your sparking rears its head and you can no longer ignore the pressing questions at hand.

“Galvatron,” you say, quiet, because you don’t want to break the delicate balance of this moment, but you do need answers, “what did you do?”

“I changed the game,” he says, and his face turns towards you. The angle’s awkward, but if you both try, then you can get into each other’s peripheral vision. “I’m _sick_ of playing by their rules – this time, _we_ dictate the terms, my Hot Rod.”

_My Hot Rod._ So he _does_ know that you’re not Rodimus Prime. Something deep inside you unwinds, a coil of tension you hadn’t even realised was there until it wasn’t anymore. Still…

“Bit more straightforward than that, please,” you say, tired. “I’m not up to metaphors right now.”

Galvatron shifts you in his hold, and you prepare to be let down, but it turns out that he’s only getting your frame into a better position to see your face. Your weight’s no longer centred alongside his, equalising your centre of balance, but you don’t think his pistons will feel much strain. He doesn’t let go. “When you were taken from me,” he starts, and, _oh,_ for him to not even be able to say the word _died_ is – it’s not good, “I went to Cyclonus, who went to Soundwave. They left, and came back with a set of schematics: a one-way time portal, to here, to _now.”_

“You – you _went back in time?”_ you ask. It’s – not what you expected, though you’re not sure what exactly you were imagining in the first place.

“Yes,” Galvatron nods sharply. “This is before the extra-planetary energon search operation undertaken by the elite units – Megatron and Optimus Prime still battle above us.”

He tells you the date. You mouth it to yourself a moment – it’s so many millennia before your time – before forcibly putting it aside for now.

“What’s the plan?” you ask, a bit weakly. You have no doubt that Galvatron has a plan.

“Get to the surface,” Galvatron says, “get a ship, destroy Unicron – that was the trade for getting back your spark – and…” He looks at you, then, red optics fierce. “And start a neutral settlement.”

“… What?” you ask, and you don’t feel like you’re in the wrong in your mental scrambling to catch up. The _destroy Unicron_ bit is fine, is understandable, but – “A _neutral_ settlement?”

The concept is nearly unknown to you. _Neutral?_ Does he mean in the war? There can be mecha not Autobot and not Decepticon – not beholden to fight? You’ve never heard of such a thing; not for Cybertronians, anyway, though you recall the idea from helping Daniel with his history homework in times past – or would that be times future? This whole thing is already giving you a helm-ache.

“Yes,” Galvatron ascertains, the steadiness of his voice telling you that this is a path he’s already walking in his mind, a destination decided, “it will be our compromise.”

“Compromise?” you ask again, still catching up. Galvatron does this, sometimes. Makes plans and thinks things through – thinks them through _thoroughly,_ to be fair – and then neglects to explain his thought process, leaving someone else, often-times _you,_ blinking in confusion, still mentally at Point A, and he’s several steps ahead at Point F and impatient for you to catch up. His tactical and strategic units have such _immense_ processing power, in accordance to his forging as Unicron’s Herald and warlord, and your poor Autobot brain module is just _not designed_ for those kinds of thought processes, though you know you’re better than most of your fellows in that regard.

“Between our causes,” he says. “My want to live independently, and your want to – _care –_ for your fellow Cybertronians.” His mouth twists in distaste, but this is an old point of contention, and not one worth re-hashing. Neither of you will budge on your views – he that the Cybertronians as a species are just not worth worrying over, and you that you have a responsibility to do right by them – so it’s just not worth beginning the disagreement again.

By now, your own strategical unit has fired up and started to run simulations, picking apart what Galvatron _means,_ and what such a thing would _do._ “You…” you stutter over your own words for a moment, “that would…”

“We tell them that they are only welcome to join and live there if they swear off fighting,” Galvatron says, and his face tells you that he can hardly believe the words he’s speaking. “No Autobots, no Decepticons. Provisions will be made for the coding differences between the two, but there will be _no war._ And they follow the rules or they get banished.”

“That’s – that’s not going to be an easy operation,” you say, and it’s the truth. What a lot of people – those not Cybertronian – don’t understand is this: the Autobots and the Decepticons aren’t two factions – they’re more like two subspecies. All Cybertronian, but base coding differences, diversity of physical frames, the stark difference in culture… if they both hadn’t been built by the Quintessons, one might even struggle to say that they were related at all, save by the fact that they’re both mechanical races.

And telling those who come to put that aside? That’s – “It won’t work,” you tell Galvatron, certain, “not if you’re asking them to stop calling themselves Autobots, to stop calling themselves Decepticons. Strip that away, and – erasure is _not_ the way to go.”

Galvatron huffs. “They can call themselves what they like!” he snaps. “They can have their practices and their beliefs and their traditions, I don’t care – what they agree to is to not _fight._ And they have to _agree to it._ That way, we build a settlement to rule over that assuages your sense of duty: you can look after a bunch of mecha who’ve sworn to live in peace, and build from there, while _we_ set the rules. Tell me, my own, is this not an amenable compromise?”

You open your mouth, don’t know what to say, close it. It’s – you’ve never conceived of such a thing, but… the idea, you _want it._

_A place to live in peace,_ you marvel. _Not beholden to the Prime, not sworn to the Emperor of Destruction. Equality, equity, everything we’ve ever wanted to rebuild._

Because – who’s stopping you? There are only two sides to this war because Cybertron has _always_ been so clearly divided in two. But Galvatron’s lateral thinking has struck again – why _not_ a third option? There are mecha you know from the Autobots who’d rather not fight, and only do so out of duty to the Prime. If they had the opportunity, even if it meant having to say _no_ to the call to arms, to not fight and still live as Autobots, their culture not lost or hidden – you think there’d be a fair few who would take it.

As for the Decepticons… you could not say. You’ve been taught that they’re more bloodthirsty than your own, but you’ve seen the glee some of your own warriors take in battle, and you _know_ there are Decepticon civilians, deep behind their lines, not just because logic dictates that they must exist to keep the machine of war going, but because you’ve overheard Cyclonus liaising with their leaders, ensuring that all Decepticon bases and communes are functioning smoothly. There surely must be some who would take rebuilding over war.

Provisions made – yes, you’ve heard, in tiny dregs from the Autobots and in spouts full of old fury from the Decepticons, how unbalanced pre-war Cybertron was. _Racist,_ to use a human word, skewed heavily in Autobot favour. The war didn’t come out of nowhere, after all.

Still… for all intents and purposes, you’re about to create a third side to the war, taking mecha away from – hopefully – both sides. No matter that you aren’t out to pick a fight, you’re still going to need to be able to defend yourself and your people from potentially a war on two fronts, if the leaders take it into mind to try and force their people back into the fold.

And you’d need a place to _put_ the settlement, wouldn’t you? Somewhere with resources, some place easily defensible… Galvatron would likely thrive on being charged with defences – you can hardly believe he’s willing to _stop fighting,_ because even if you’re bonded, he _lives_ for battle in a way that is telling of his origins, a way too intrinsic in him to waste energy getting angry at because it _won’t change_ – so making that his area is probably already in his own plans…

(You barely even realise just how on-board you already are with this plan, already thinking through future needs and threats, what resources will be necessary to secure, until later.

While you’re thinking, Galvatron continues to head up towards the surface, occasionally glancing at you, your blue optics dim and your face distant as you strategise, mouth moving around silent words as you think it all through.

He smirks at the sight: you only realise later how distracted you got from the memories of having died what was to you only hours ago.)

–

First item on the list, once the golden stairway has opened into an old abandoned mine shaft, sliding shut behind you, is a ship. You pat one of Galvatron’s shoulder pauldrons and he finally puts you down. You pause in place a moment, finding your centre of balance again in this new-old-new frame, making sure you’re steady on your pedes before you step away from your bonded’s hold.

“Where to?” you ask, more than ready to let Galvatron take the lead here. You’re feeling a bit raw, still, and you’ve powered through upset and pain more than enough times on the field before, but – your own death is in a whole other tier, and the thought of someone else making the decisions for a while is too attractive a notion to resist.

You probably shouldn’t dump this all on Galvatron. You know that. While you’ve been – dead – he’s been grieving, planning, getting angry. He doesn’t need more weight, but –

But you know him. What Galvatron _needs,_ always, is _control._ You died, and he couldn’t do anything about it, couldn’t save you, so he changed it so that he could, rewrote the entire timeline – for _you._ And giving him this control now? Telling him _I’ll go where you lead,_ right here and now with your return still so new, with his hands reluctant to let you go, his EM field not straying from yours the way politeness dictates it should? It would help him, and it would help you, so why conform to what you _should do_ when it’s not what either of you need?

“Towards Kalis,” Galvatron answers, optics distant as he listens in on the comms he can hear. You’ve got the Autobot network chattering away in the background, too, but it’s the Decepticons who’ll have ships. The war won’t leave Cybertron for another million years, when the _Ark_ and the _Nemesis_ set off to find more energon. Space-worthy ships, right now, will be small: neither side ever built battlecruisers, took the war away from this planet, but shuttles for trade still exist… though the number of species who are willing to trade with Cybertronians has gone distinctly down the longer this war has gone on.

Kalis, you recall, used to be the Decepticons’ capital space port, before the war. Ibex was the Autobot one, you remember being told. But Ibex has been long-abandoned, heavy bombing in the early stages of the war forcing a total evacuation – and the ‘Bots had never reoccupied the place, making places like Iacon and Sistex and Ky-Alexia their strongholds instead.

Galvatron sets off, following some map in his HUD, probably. His frame was forged by Unicron in space, and he was made to be able to orient himself within it, his omni-directional navi-systems much more suited to the task of cross-referencing his location with satellite data you have no doubt he is hacking into and his own system’s pings than yours are. You don’t hesitate to follow.

He leads you out of the mine, up two layers, south-west for several mecha-miles, then up a half-rusted maintenance shaft and finally out onto the surface layer. You look around, not recognising your location, but – it’s all familiar, in its own way. The wreckage here is not much different than the wreckage anywhere else.

Tiring, the two of you take shelter under a broken bridge after Galvatron checks its stability, and not a moment too soon: overhead, long ingrained instinct has your audios picking up the sound of approaching seeker engines long before they’re visible. You duck down, make sure that not even your shadow stretches beyond the confines of the bridge, centuries of avoiding Shockwave’s air force making combat programmes spring into life, priming your weaponry even as you tamp down on your EM field and dim your optics, dialling up your audios.

Galvatron’s head follows the path of the seekers unerringly, though he can surely see nothing but the stained metal of the bridge above. You recognise the sight of someone listening in to a comm line you don’t have access to. Within moments, the seekers are gone.

“What is it?” you ask, low, nearly a whisper. The reminder that the war is very much ongoing right now, that Cybertron’s skies are a threat once more, has jarred you a little. You hadn’t realised how used to walking openly and unafraid you got, before.

“They’re searching for the cause of a strange energy signature,” Galvatron says, “though they bemoan the pointlessness of the task – it was registered several days ago and has not been seen since. That was my arrival, as I’m sure you can guess.”

“Several days?” you ask. Galvatron isn’t one to tarry…

“Time moves strangely in other domains,” Galvatron answers. “Your god was reluctant to let me into the core, though I made it in the end.”

You nod in understanding. It makes sense.

Galvatron wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you towards him, and you don’t resist, going willingly. He sits down on the largest piece of stable rubble, and that leaves you with nowhere but his lap, so that is where you go, him sitting you on one of his large thighs. Your spark leaps at the action, at the possessive splay of his fingers over your hips. _My mate,_ you think, your wounded bond glowing in your chest, aching with the aftermath of death and life and whatever comes between, _**mine.**_

Galvatron takes an energon cube out of his subspace, compact and glowing a bright pink. _Nutrient-rich,_ you think at the sight of it, catching the swirls of additives inside. These types of cubes aren’t exactly standard fare, not anymore, but you know that before the war they were the go-to for explorers and expeditionists, who would desire all of their frame’s needs in as small a thing to carry as possible. It’s not medical-grade energon, which is even richer, but it’s a piece of evidence for just how planned-out this whole… time travelling resurrection operation was.

Your beloved does not drink a drop of it, instead prying off the lid and raising it to _your_ face. You blink before setting your lips upon the edge, and when Galvatron tilts his hand, you tip your head back the slightest bit, letting him feed you. _Control,_ you think to yourself as he does so. The rich energon spills into your mouth, flavoursome on your glossa, sliding down your intake, through the filters, down into fuel tanks you hadn’t realised were so empty until right now, the red warning in your HUD so familiar from long years that you’ve been ignoring it.

One of Galvatron’s hands – the one that was on your hip – trails up to cup your jaw, and you let him, with light presses of his finger-pads on your chin, open and close your mouth as he feeds you the whole cube, the edge of his palm touching your neck cables, surely feeling the movement as you swallow down the energon. _Control._ He needs it and you give it to him, willingly, even a little relievedly, letting those large hands, ones that have torn apart mecha before, rest so close to your vulnerable neck, trusting in him to be his own form of gentle.

When the cube is gone, the two of you sit there for some minutes more, EM fields meshing at the edges, and you soaking in the warmth of his frame. The coldness of death hasn’t quite left you yet, it seems, sunk into your struts in a way you _know_ is psychosomatic, but that you cannot shake alone.

“Kalis?” you prompt, quietly, and the two of you move on.

–

Kalis is still many mecha-miles away when your plan goes somewhat awry. A rumbling through the air signals the appearance of a low-flying shuttle, and you and Galvatron only barely manage to make it into cover in time.

As it flies past, you squint at the secondary symbol on the side. There’s the Decepticon one in stark purple, of course, but there’s also one in a very dark blue, outlined with gold, that looks a bit like the Matrix without the handles, the six indents extending into rays.

“Symbol of the Sacratores,” Galvatron murmurs to you. “Devout worshippers, warrior-monks. They’re the central body in Decepticon religious tradition.”

_The Sacratores._ You’ve heard of them before. Votaries and warriors alike, far different from the softer priests found amongst the Autobots. The Decepticons held Primus as their god the same as the Autobots did, acknowledged the Prime as a Prophet, though you knew that there were differences in just _what_ that meant, and the weight the word of the Prime carried. You also recall something about… Venerated Sparks? Kup hadn’t had many stories to tell, and those he did were fifth-hand or so themselves. Back when you were young and curious, you’d wondered about what hearing the Decepticon stories first-hand would be like, though it’s been centuries since you last thought about it.

The shuttle continues to fly away, low and slow, and Galvatron’s moving before you’ve even realised it, opportunistic and confident as always. Up he goes, activating his anti-gravity mods and sweeping up alongside the shuttle, cannon firing and tearing a hole in the rear access door in a plume of smoke, likely before the mecha inside have even realised there’s someone there.

The shuttle veers at an angle in the air as you lose sight of Galvatron as he slips into the opening he made, tipping sideways, skirting the top of a half-wrecked building and descending down into a street out of view, not _quite_ a crash, but certainly not intended. You dart out of the shelter, across the street, rounding the building with your triple barrel forearm lasers primed, trying to assess the situation.

The shuttle’s on the ground, partially propped on a debris pile, but other than the hole Galvatron made and some minor dents, it’s not too worse for wear – the hulls of space-worthy shuttles had to be reinforced, after all, and it didn’t exactly fall far or at great speed. Inside the shuttle, through the tinted viewports, you can see exactly nothing, not even the flashes of laser fire.

You jog up to the shuttle – still nothing to be heard – and scale it a little way, ducking into the hole, forearm lasers first. Inside, Galvatron is pinning another mech to the floor, ignoring his cursing, the walls scorched with a couple of fresh blaster bolts, but none big enough nor damaging enough to have come from your bonded’s cannon.

“Is he the only one?” you ask, coming up beside Galvatron.

At the sight of you, the mech stills his struggles, red optics widening as they catch sight of your face, before he starts to struggle harder. He’s a racer, like you, you’re surprised to note. The frame type isn’t common amongst Decepticons. He’s black, with white and gold accents, helm finials extending up in a taper, and oval kibble framing his cheek-plates that are likely filled with mods attached to the processor – an upgraded navi-system or comm system or something of the like. Decepticons don’t waste frame space with useless aesthetical attachments, like some Autobots are prone to do.

“Just him,” Galvatron confirms. “There’ll be stasis-cuffs somewhere around here. Bring me them.”

You let Galvatron order you around, not minding overmuch since it’s what you were about to suggest anyway, and you know he’s going to be micro-managing you for at least several days. It’s part of how he processes through the fear of loss he verbally says he doesn’t have, and it’s only going to be worse this time because it didn’t stop at just _fear_.

A part of you can’t help but wonder as to why Galvatron didn’t just kill this mech, because you know he wouldn’t hesitate to take out even one of his own if it seemed the better course of action. Still, mercy is not to be discouraged, so you don’t voice these questions, instead bringing Galvatron the cuffs you find in the third overhead locker you look in. He secures them around your prisoner’s wrists, arms behind his back, and stands, leaving the poor mech there on the floor.

You sigh, lean down, and lift the mech up to sit in one of the chairs, Galvatron grumbling wordlessly behind you. It’s a small shuttle, only two pilot seats and a couple of places behind for passengers. The mech bares his sharp denta at you as you strap him in, pulling taught the safety belts, but says nothing, his swearing run dry, red optics never leaving your face. You try not to be disconcerted by that.

“Your designation, Sacrator,” Galvatron rumbles as you step back.

The Sacrator hisses, and then growls out, “Deadlock, _traitor.”_

“Mission?” Galvatron asks, looming, unconcerned by the _traitor_ comment.

The Sacrator bristles, snarling out, “Slag you.”

You search around, ignoring the byplay, picking up the pulse rifle from the floor and putting it into the gun locker, seeking out the repair kit. That hole will need to be patched up quickly, especially if this shuttle has an expected due time that it’s now going to miss.

Galvatron abandons the Decepticon Sacrator to join you, finding the spare sheet metal around the same time that you find the welder, and between the two of you, the rear entrance is patched within a couple of breems. The war has not afforded wasted time any value, and both of you were made to be soldiers.

You take a moment to stretch while Galvatron ignites the engines again, setting a quick ship-status scan to run while he changes the plotted course in the navi-computer. Deadlock stares at you, and you finally meet his optics again and tilt your head in askance. “What?”

Deadlock narrows his burning optics at you. “I was in reverie,” he says, “mere hours ago, and I received a vision. You, holding a star, while a gaping maw loomed out of the darkness, trying to swallow you whole. It shrank back at your light.” He tilts his head, optics searching and sharp. “You know what I’m talking about,” he says. “I can see it in your face.”

You… don’t really know what to say to that. Visions? Reverie? Well, if you ever needed proof that Decepticon priests were just as connected to Primus as Autobot ones, then here you have it, but you definitely didn’t expect this when you leapt after Galvatron and into this shuttle.

You shake your head of the thoughts. “You saw our enemy,” you tell him, and you’re about to go on and explain about Unicron, but then think better of it. Deadlock’s not involved in this fight. “Look, this isn’t personal, we just need the ship.”

“Hope you crash and die in flames,” Deadlock sneers, looking away.

You raise an optical ridge. “You’d die, too,” you point out.

He bares his denta at you again, but doesn’t reply. You’re about to say something like, _We’ll drop you off at edge of Decepticon territory before we leave the planet,_ but Galvatron derails that line of thought with his next words:

“We’re taking him with us.”

You whip your head around, and in your peripheral vision, you can see Deadlock do the same. “What?”

Galvatron gestures. “First citizen,” he says.

You – don’t even have the words. “Galvatron,” you say carefully, “they have to come _willingly,_ not – not via _abduction.”_

Galvatron shrugs. “We take him or we kill him,” he says, and you know he’s not going to budge on this.

And – the threat is so high, he’s not wrong about that. If you land yourselves on the radar of the Autobots and Decepticons now, your plans for a peaceful settlement will never take off. No, worse, if you fall now – because while the two of you are very powerful, it is still _two individuals_ against one, if not two, _whole armies –_ then _Unicron won’t be stopped._ And that will have disastrous consequences, because you _know,_ know in a way that has nothing to do with evidence you’ve collected with your physical senses, that Unicron already knows that something in the fabric of the universe has _changed._ He’s _already coming._

You take a deep vent in, will patience into yourself, and ex-vent. “Fine,” you say, because you’re not out to kill today. Deadlock’s a Decepticon, but – but what does that have to do with you having any _right_ to kill him? Nothing, because you don’t.

The Autobots and the Decepticons have been at war for a long time – your entire life several times over – but – but it _doesn’t have to be that way._ Your whole aim right now is to found a place to live in peace, and you can’t start that with killing. Has Deadlock killed Autobots before? Almost certainly _yes._ But you’ve killed ‘Cons, and that doesn’t make you any better than him.

“Seems like you’re tagging along with us,” you say to Deadlock, watching as his face twists with incredulity at his situation. You suppose that _kidnapped by a third party_ probably wasn’t covered in ‘Con basic training. “I’m Hot Rod, by the way. Other guy’s Galvatron. We’re, er. We’re Neutrals.” It feels so strange to say, but – good. In its own way.

“Neutral?” Deadlock repeats, disbelieving. “That’s – you can’t be _neutral!”_

And something settles into place inside of you, that part that Kup always bemoaned. “Watch me,” you grin, and for the first time since it happened, the weight of dying feels a little lighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter, stage left: G1 Deadlock!! 
> 
> The name for the order of Decepticon warrior-monks comes from the Latin "sacrātōrēs" which is plural form of "sacrātor"; the word means "priest ; someone who hallows or consecrates". I don't see any reason to not use Latin for original organisations when canon uses Latin all the time for literally anything. 
> 
> ... There is some sort of symbolism in Galvatron taking Hot Rod up to the surface, from death into life, in a bridal carry. 
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](https://stairre.tumblr.com/). Come and say hello!


	3. Galvatron II

**Countervail**

**Part Three : Galvatron II**

–

You use your for-now unfettered access to the Decepticon comm network to help pilot the shuttle out of the atmosphere and away from Cybertron’s system as quickly and efficiently as possible. Slipping between the sky patrols, you let the Decepticon ident ping attached to the shuttle take you as far as it can before one of the operators begins to ask questions – but by then, you’re far enough out that putting on a burst of speed and high-tailing it actually works, and you’re out of optic sight with the stealth shielding enabled faster than seekers can be scrambled or anti-aircraft cannons can lock on.

You hear your bonded – and, _oh,_ feeling his EM field again against your own, his spark present once more on the other end of your frayed bond, you cannot describe – vent out a sigh of relief when you get the shuttle in the clear. The Sacrator Deadlock makes a click of distaste, but even he cannot hide from your perceptive electromagnetic sensors the feeling of relief that he has not been shot down by his own fellows.

But this is only the first step. All is not well in the wider universe, and you know it, can feel it, that creeping shadow unfolding in the back of your mind and spark. _Unicron._

“He’s coming,” you say out loud, breaking the silence that has fallen over the ship. You know that Hot Rod will know what you mean – while you feel it as a darkening of an already shadowy world, poison green optics staring through the black like distant stars, a rush of power through your lines as your Unmaker-made spirit revels in the attention in a way you both love and loathe, you know that your bonded’s holier nature will have it be a fear, a pain, a taint and not a shower of pure purpose.

And it is true: Hot Rod grimaces, shudders, and says, “I can feel it.”

“Who’s coming?” Deadlock asks, gruffly, and you ignore him, programming a course into the navi-computer instead. There’s a nebula only a couple of systems away that should hide the shuttle better until you and Hot Rod hash out a battle plan, to prepare for the take-down of your accursed creator, make sure you’re both ready. You are not _sloppy._

There’s a pause as your beloved hesitates a moment, before his honest nature wins out. “Unicron,” he answers Deadlock.

You’re watching the screen, so you don’t see whatever look passes over Deadlock’s face, but you do hear the strained “What?” coming from behind, followed immediately by, “I don’t believe you, what a pile of slag. Do you think such idiocy will spare you from being tried as _traitors?”_

You snort, loudly, and turn your head. Deadlock is sneering and your Hot Rod has a twisted _I wish you were right_ not-quite-smile on his face. “Unicron doesn’t care whether you believe in him or not,” you say. “He’ll devour you anyway.”

Deadlock meets your optics – this one is brave, isn’t he? For though he knows you not as his _lord,_ even a cursory glance can tell him that you are very, very dangerous. Though the _warrior_ part of _warrior-monk_ is by no means an exaggeration, that you know well.

The Order of the Sacratores had been nearly extinct by the time of your reign – the long, slow war of attrition that took place in the absence of Megatron and Optimus Prime, under the rule of the science-oriented Shockwave, who held little to no respect for the spiritual side of his own culture, had ground their numbers down ‘til they were all but gone – but you still had millennia of reports along with old memory files that belonged to Megatron that you could access. A Sacrator on the battlefield was worth an entire squad on their own.

And… this one. You recognise him. You’d _asked_ for his name _,_ of course, demanding affirmation, but you’d already known the answer. It was partly why you had stayed your hand when taking the shuttle.

_Deadlock._ He’d been an old friend of Megatron’s…

You are not Megatron, and his friends are not your friends, but – well. You like Soundwave well enough, right? And Deadlock – for his millions of years of loyal service, his sharp and steady companionship – he deserves a better end than a shuttle-takeover turned fatal at the hands of one he does not know used to be his lord. _Will be_ his lord again.

“I know it must sound crazy from where you’re sitting,” your beloved says, standing next to Deadlock, trying for gentle, trying for comforting, and you could tell him not to waste his time, but you’ve found that to him – to most Autobots – even failed assurances are not considered wasted time, “but he really is coming. And we’re going to stop him.”

“ _You’re_ the crazy ones,” Deadlock snaps back, and you can tell that he’s smarting a bit from the Autobot-style comfort your mate tried to give him. Decepticon-style is far more _suck it up and deal with it_ , with softness only for the most private and most personal of relationships and settings. “You actually think the Unmaker is _real?_ He’s a metaphor, a piece of symbolism, a warning about greed and faithlessness. Primus, I’m being held prisoner by a pair of delusional deserters!”

“ _This_ is my duty,” your Hot Rod says, sharp now, blue optics blazing with too much light to be standard, and you _know_ he has complicated feelings regarding his divine-appointed function, but Deadlock’s words have cut deeper than even he thought they would. “I am not derelict in it.”

“Ignore the Sacrator,” you tell your mate, interrupting whatever answer Deadlock is about to come out with. An old friend of Megatron’s he may be, but _no one_ gets away with upsetting your beloved. “He will find out the truth soon enough.”

Your Hot Rod sighs a little, but nods. You tell Deadlock, “Don’t make me have to gag you,” before turning around again to sit properly in the pilot’s chair, gazing at the stars outside the front viewport. Hot Rod sighs, tired but a little amused, at your words, and joins you on the adjacent chair.

“You’re both still crazy,” Deadlock says behind.

“Oh, do shut up,” you say.

–

The shuttle only has two hab suites, facing each other on either side of the corridor. You drag Deadlock over to one under the weight of your beloved’s optics, the bare room hardly needing to be stripped of much of anything to make it a make-shift containment cell. You cuff him to the berth and empty his subspace – and the two hidden subspaces as well. He is clearly a little alarmed that you know where they are, old memory files that don’t belong to you directing your digits to the right locations.

Your Hot Rod comes in with a storage crate and everything that Deadlock owns goes in it. “We’re not discarding them,” your bonded assures the Sacrator with the empathy of someone who has lived with next to nothing to call their own for nearly the entirety of their existence, and so is understanding of the territoriality that is induced over what little one does have, “they’re just going into storage, I promise.”

Deadlock hisses at him, but his optics unerringly follow the crate as Hot Rod takes it away. It’s mostly his modded blasters and rifles, some religious paraphernalia, the ceremonial cloak the Sacratores use for prayer, and a couple of other possessions clearly more sentimental than practical, but Hot Rod treats them all with equal care as he stores them away. Your bonded is merciful, always has been, and you’d bemoan it, but it would be both wasted time – he is not going to change – and also offensive. His mercy is one of his defining traits, and you would never tell him to be someone he isn’t.

When he leaves the two of you alone, you turn to Deadlock and say, low, “That mech is my bonded. Whatever insults you hurl at him are against me also.”

He looks at you. “You’re a ‘Con,” he says, which is both true and untrue, you suppose, and there _is_ a rather large Decepticon sigil on your chest plate. “How did an _Autobot_ impress you enough to _bond_ with him?”

You raise an optical ridge. “It happened sometimes before the war,” you say, not mentioning that you weren’t strictly around at that point, “and my Hot Rod is no _mere_ Autobot. He never truly was. Besides, have you not noticed? Or are you so caught up in his blue optics that you did not see?”

Deadlock squints at you. “What?”

You grin at him, and you _know_ it’s full of a vicious victory that Deadlock cannot grasp the full context of, but you don’t care. “He has no Autobot symbol,” you say. “He is, like I am, _Neutral.”_

Indeed, Hot Rod’s chest plate is bare of the symbol that once identified him as an Autobot. For he is not one, not truly, not anymore. Vector Sigma or Primus or both must have – to your distaste – picked something out of your thoughts regarding your long-term plans, and made an unaligned Chosen One to go with the future third faction.

“You bear the Decepticon sigil,” Deadlock remarks.

“Not for much longer,” you tell him, “and its removal will be no loss. I was never _truly_ a Decepticon. Not even truly _Cybertronian.”_

Deadlock tilts his head a little, and you know that he is humouring you more than anything, but that doesn’t matter – he will see the truth for himself sooner rather than later. “Oh? And what do you think you are, if not one of the Children of Primus?”

“Made of Unicron,” you answer, and you let your optics blaze with that unholy fire for one moment, your rolling EM field dark and twisted, the product of a spark full of the Unmaker. “Don’t bother to call me delusional,” you add on, bearing your denta at the way he shrinks back, instincts howling at him that he’s in a room with a predator. “For I _am_ the Herald of Unicron, and my beloved is the Chosen One of Primus. This is beyond your teachings, Sacrator, and all the better for it. I am no slave to the gods. Never again.”

You turn and leave, not giving Deadlock a chance to answer. You have a bonded to go catch up with.

–

“You didn’t have to scare him like that,” your Hot Rod says reproachfully as you join him in the cockpit again.

You scoff. “I needed to make sure he knows his place,” you answer. “You are mine, and to attack a Decepticon’s bonded is an attack on both, and will be answered with equal violence. We don’t bond easily, you know.”

“I thought you weren’t a Decepticon,” your bonded teases, gently.

“I am not,” you say. “But he is perceiving me through that filter, and while _I,_ Galvatron, am no Decepticon, the foundation upon which I was forged _was._ Our values are not the same, but they do closely align in a lot of ways.”

It is the truth, and it is one your Hot Rod has long accepted. You have thought for – years, now – that your beloved is perhaps not _purely_ Autobot himself, but that is something that he will have to come around to in his own time, though already you think the seeds of that self-knowledge are there.

Even in the original timeline, if he were truly meant to _unite_ the Children of Primus once again, then he would had to have had some amount of non-Autobot coding to understand the Decepticons. His strategic and tactical units are already non-standard, his integrated weaponry even more so, and though he is as merciful and compassionate as any Autobot, there is a practical streak in him that reeks far more of _Decepticon_ than anything else.

Your beloved shutters his optics, and now that Deadlock is hidden away and out of sight – though, surely, straining his audios to hear any words that might travel – he slumps in the pilot chair, an exhaustion too deep for any mortal weighing him down, his face plates lining with tiredness so much he almost looks more _Rodimus_ than _Hot Rod_ for a moment.

“…Where is he?” he asks, quietly, and you know who he is talking about immediately.

You shutter your own optics, turning your attention inward, tapping, with grim determination, at that unnatural sense that always lingers in the back of your mind. Darkness unspools around you as your awareness grows, the sparks of Hot Rod and Deadlock immediately near and the ones behind you on Cybertron farther away, shining like stars – Hot Rod like a sun – and farther still the real stars, the solar winds, the clouds of stardust, asteroids flying and planets spinning and black holes sucking in all around them…

_There._

Unicron is like a black hole himself, but this one is a seething one, malevolent rather than unfeeling. And he’s on the move. You watch him from half a universe away, and he _watches_ _back._

There’s the sense of something turning, like a wheel or a cog has shifted into a different position, an unheard _thunk_ of something being dropped into place as a lever is pulled or a gear is changed, resonating through the fabric of the universe.

You disengage, the cycles of your ventilations stuttering as you retract your unholy sense back into your own body, the feeling of being physically incarnate returning slowly, your fingers cold like they’d been touching the edge of the void. You are not _afraid,_ but you are _wary,_ as any being with any kind of intelligence would be when they’ve stared into the abyss and the abyss has _stare_ _d back._

You hiss out a sharp vent and send the co-ordinates to Hot Rod on a secure short-range data channel, warning him, “They’re already changing,” as you do so.

Then you both wince at the same time as, in the plane of existence just below this one, something _tears._

“Frag,” your beloved bites out. “He’s on the move.” The atmosphere of the shuttle changes, whipping you both into action as your battle programming shoots online, a sudden frantic energy in the air as events veer off of their expected course. Neither of you had expected to have to confront Unicron so _soon,_ but he’s _coming,_ early, and the choice is no longer yours.

You slip into the other pilot’s chair, strap in with practised motions, and take hold of the flight controls. “We’re going to have to dive,” you say. “'Else he will be upon us before we know it, and Cybertron is not ready for him. We cannot battle here.”

Hot Rod nods and reaches across, putting his palm on the back of your hand. “Together,” he says. “Less strain if we do it together.”

“The bond,” you remind him, a dull echo of hurt sounding in the back of your head, in the back of your spark. “It’s too frayed right now – it’ll be dangerous.” It’s not the danger it would put _you_ in that makes you hesitate to commit to what you _know_ is the most logical course of action. Oh, well. No one’s ever accused you of _logic_ before.

“It’s the best option,” your beloved says, simply, because it is.

“I – ” You cut yourself off, snarl wordlessly, glare at the monitor displaying the course the shuttle is still flying, towards a nebula that will now not be enough. But the rawness of the last – however long it was – _too long –_ rips the words from your vocaliser with an honesty you would never give any but your own. “I can’t – I can’t lose you again. I _refuse.”_

Your Hot Rod’s EM field wobbles a little, but he says, firm, “So let’s do this.”

And that’s that, really. You sigh, though you know it’s more an exhale of useless anger that you cannot keep him safe, not even now, not even when you lost him so little time ago and now might lose him again. In your chest, you tug open the damaged bond, and he pulls on his end, and then the swirling energies of the Creator and the Unmaker that so deeply taint both of your sparks are in contact with each other.

It hurts, and you grunt while he mutes his vocaliser in a burst of static. But pain means nothing, so the two of you tug it open wider, and this would be easier if your bond was whole, but it’s not right now, and you just have to deal with it and move on, keep going.

“We didn’t warn Deadlock,” your Hot Rod says suddenly, the thought belatedly occurring to him. A surge of affection flashes through you – what an _Autobot_ your beloved can be, worrying over giving a ‘Con some warning that the flight is about to get a little turbulent.

“Too late,” you say, and then you jam the yoke as far left as it will go, the shuttle veering sharply. In the same instant, the fabric of reality twists open under the weight of you and your bonded’s combined will, the shuttle plunging down from one plane of existence to the next in a judder that threatens to split the shuttle apart. There’s a yell from the hab suite behind, but neither of you pay attention to it, focused as you are on guiding the ship through the swirling tunnel and safely levelling it out again one layer of reality down.

“ _What the Pit was that?!”_ comes an echoing shout from behind, but as the hole closes above you, folding shut like it was never there, and the two of you ease back on the frayed bond, a feeling not unlike removing fingers pressed into a dent, a startled laugh comes from your Hot Rod. He chokes it off quickly enough, but not before you turn to raise an optical ridge at him – neither of you are divine, though you have both been deeply touched by it, and accessing the not-so-mortal powers that your mostly-mortal frames possess is always risky.

“It’s – it’s never felt that easy before,” your Hot Rod says, a troubled look passing across his face. “It shouldn’t have been – the bond is so damaged, but – it _was.”_

“A parting gift?” you question, though the thought makes you angry. How _dare_ those pathetic gods give something that would put you and your beloved into _debt?_

“Perhaps,” Hot Rod says, optics dimming as his focus turns inward. You let him think, turning your attention back to the shuttle’s course, the navi-computer glitching in the corner of your vision, but you ignore that. It’s not a device meant to work in a place like this. “Before – the Matrix. I tapped in _via_ it, but just then felt like touching that light directly…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I – later. This is a problem for later.”

You want to rage some more, but your beloved is right, so you tamp down on it, fold it up, and set it aside for a better time.

Farther away, but closing in, Unicron is moving. The fabric of space-time can – fold, in a way, and distances travelled through certain levels of reality translate to different ones in other levels. This layer here, it is tight, compressed, and every light-year of distance here is several thousand in the plane above, where most of creation resides. It’s an easy way to travel great distances through the universe, to appear when and where you’re least expected, and you yourself have used it as such before.

Unicron doesn’t, though. Not usually. He is patient and relentless, unworried in his march across the universe, and why should he be? He is the Void, the Anti-Creation, the black hole at the heart of everything. He can wait for forever, if needs be. Oh, that is not to say he cannot be fast – he can strike like a razor-snake when he wants to, death descending in one fell swoop – but he usually does not bother. Hah! And Primus was _offended_ when you said he might as well be rolling over? If Unicron is typically confident enough to not even strike quickly and get away, instead leisurely roving through the universe and terrorising as he pleases, then _offended_ isn’t enough!

Still, the situation has changed. Unicron is aware of you – both of you – his Herald and the Chosen One, and he _knows_ that you have the power to excise him from this universe, blocking his entry in. Your old master, he is not used to being caught off-guard, and he hates anything that undermines his way of doing things – in this, and you hate it so very much, you two are not so different.

So he’s coming, ready to stamp out the threat, cut it off before you and your beloved have a proper chance to gather yourselves for this battle. It is not, you acknowledge, a foolish thing to do. Only an _idiot_ lets his enemy grow strong because he is convinced they cannot hurt him, and, unfortunately, Unicron is no idiot. Right now, you and your Hot Rod are at your weakest – your bond still damaged, your energy levels low, your resources scarce, your mental fortitude scattered and unready. Then again, Unicron doesn’t believe in fair fights, so you really should have expected this, and you can’t quite immediately understand why you didn’t…

“Think he’s tapping into an echo from – before?” Hot Rod asks, and, yes, that would be an answer, wouldn’t it? If you took an echo of his demise back through with you, a dying scream of a god, then he _knows_ the two of you are a threat he has fallen to before, and he will not think your struggles amusingly futile, the way he did in that other time, before your beloved proved him so very, very _wrong_ in the dark heart of his CPU, too late for him to do anything about it.

You grit your denta. “He’s too close,” you say shortly, getting up. “Too wary. Stealth won’t work this time – the shadows are his domain. We must blind him with light instead, draw him close, let the bright reflection hide the knife ‘til it’s in him and he’s _bleeding.”_

“Moth to a flame,” your beloved murmurs, taking over the flight controls. You move out of the cockpit, fast but not clumsy with haste, and into the hab you put Deadlock in.

You lean down, pull off the stasis cuffs, and pull him up bodily, planting him on his pedes. “Change of plans,” you say, and this time you use your _commander voice,_ as Hot Rod sometimes calls it. “Schedule’s been moved up.”

“What does that _mean?”_ Deadlock hisses, and he looks you up and down, but you’re too close, and he has no leverage. One shouldn’t ever underestimate a racer in a fight – just look at your bonded! – and a Decepticon Sacrator even less, but you are twice his size, three times his mass, and your armour is thicker and your weapons loaded with more firepower than all of his combined. He visibly decides not to risk it, a show of common sense you have found unfortunately rare amongst the elite forces you once took over.

You shove the modded pulse rifle you picked up out of the gun locker on your way in into his hands. “It means,” you command, “that Unicron is not just on his way, he is practically _here.”_ You pause one second, and then hiss, low, letting the maw of the void behind your optics out, impressing upon him your power, “You will fight with us against him, _Drift.”_

Deadlock stares at you, optics wide and bright. When they are initiated into the Order, the Sacratores take up a new name, and many get extensive rebuild work done to their frames, a visible cutting of the ties of their old life. Right now, Deadlock must be wondering how you know his old name, why you know it, whether he might actually have once known _you._ You wonder what his reaction to the honest answer would be, but almost immediately put the thought out of mind. It doesn’t matter, and you don’t have time.

“Come,” you say, and drag him out to join your beloved in the cockpit again.

“Primus,” Deadlock swears at the sight of Hot Rod, glowing with scrolling golden glyphs as he pilots the shuttle through what must be to Deadlock’s mortal optics a swirling world, like you’re caught in the inside of a nebula. He grips at his rifle and stares, but you have no time for whatever religious mutterings are going through his processor. Your Hot Rod is worthy of worship, yes, but maybe not right this second.

“His Chosen,” you correct, feeling the warmth and strength of the Primal Light pouring out on to the spiritual plane from your beloved. The glyphs – ancient ones, Primal Vernacular and _older,_ like the ones deep down in the core – are the physical part of what your bonded is doing: lighting himself up like a beacon to draw Unicron in.

It’s a risky venture, but that choice was stripped from you when Unicron went on the offensive. You ping battle plans across the bond, ignoring the twist of pain at the strain, and Hot Rod nods, tugging at the yoke in his hands.

“We far enough away?” he asks through gritted denta.

You calculate it. “Yes,” you say. “Go up.”

This time, it is you alone who grasps for the layered strands that make up the planes of existence, opening the seams between this layer and the one above, and it _hurts_ more than it would doing it together, is more stressful on your systems, but your beloved is busy with something else, and cannot join your powers together right now.

Hot Rod jerks the shuttle up through the tunnel and back out into the realm of reality that most of creation resides in. Only now, you are _far_ from Cybertron, far from any inhabited planet, and Unicron is following you.

You have to fight him in this plane. This one is where he is encased in a physical frame, no matter that it is the size of a planet. Below or above, in the layers where physicality is less important? No, he would have the advantage there, the void closer, your own physical frames less capable of traversing those realms.

He’s coming, and you know that in the writhing swirls of the tear below, his physical form, the one that didn’t exist in the other realm because it didn’t need to exist, is now becoming visible, a metal monster of a planet emerging from a hole that seems too small to let it through. Deadlock makes a choked sound next to you, but you ignore him. Hot Rod fires the engines of the shuttle, rattling it, forcing it to go faster than it’s designed to.

The tear in reality closes behind Unicron, and that gaping maw is facing you, filling the side viewport as Hot Rod brings the shuttle around.

“He couldn’t transform and give us an optic, could he?” Hot Rod gripes, releasing steam with a strained voice.

“Through the maw,” you say, potential plans coming together in your head. “Get past the denta and we’re inside.”

“Ship won’t go that fast,” Hot Rod answers, jabbing at the buttons on the dash. “You – you’re gonna have to talk, say something, you want Cyclonus and Scourge back, right? Keep him distracted for a bit, buy us time.”

“ _ **Herald…”**_

“Primus, oh, Primus…” Deadlock mutters, gripping his rifle tighter at the sound of Unicron’s voice.

“ _ **You have betrayed me… I, who created you…”**_

And then he begins to unfold. You remember this, from before, how – _startling –_ it had been for the giant metal planet to become a giant mech. It’s not a fast transformation, not in comparison to the ones the Cybertronians are capable of, but for his sheer size it is still unnaturally swift.

You ignore Hot Rod’s harsh vents and Deadlock’s muttered prayers, glaring out the viewport. You _hate_ how Unicron is just – waiting, like he _knows_ that he’s got the upper hand, like he’s playing with his food. He’s here to cull you early, but still he is arrogant – you are determined that it will be his _downfall._

Well, he _doesn’t_ have the upper hand, and the background bond-sharing you and Hot Rod are engaging in will ensure it. Hot Rod continues to shine out Primal Light, but it’s not piercing Unicron’s armour; you need to destroy him from the _inside._

But, first, you need to secure Cyclonus and Scourge. You can’t let them go. You _swore._

“Galvatron,” your Hot Rod says behind you, strained, “there’s…”

He twitches in the seat and then lurches up, one hand flying out to grasp Deadlock’s arm – “Take control,” he snaps at the Sacrator – and pushing him in the direction of the flight controls. He comes up next to you at the viewport, Unicron looming outside and watching, and his vents are wheezing and the glyphs are flickering as they scroll.

You watch, alarmed, your attention torn between the Destroyer outside and the way your beloved’s EM field is twisting in – not quite _pain,_ but definitely under some sort of _weight._

Hot Rod takes your hand – the one that doesn’t have your cannon because he’s not stupid – and says, “Get closer,” to Deadlock. His optics don’t leave the for-now shut maw of Unicron, even as his fingers squeeze against yours.

“Are you _mad?”_ Deadlock says, even as he takes hold of the yoke and drifts the shuttle closer, skirting the edge of Unicron’s gravity well, the shine of the Primal glyphs inducing his obedience, you’re sure.

The maw on Unicron’s chest opens, denta as large as mountains sliding apart, denta that have eaten more worlds than you’ve ever stepped pede on, ever-sharp, ever-hungry.

“Join with me,” Hot Rod says, and you do, trusting him to have a plan, both of you sliding into the bond simultaneously. “When I say to, get us inside, full throttle,” he grits out to Deadlock, who looks like he’s so ramped up on combat programming he’s half-disassociating, his red optics edging pink and white with how bright they are, hands clenched around the yoke. This day’s probably not going anywhere near how he thought it would, when he woke from recharge this morning.

Across Hot Rod’s frame, the Primal Light flickers once, twice, and goes out. Outside, Unicron’s shadows deepen, the stars winking out of sight, space seeming deeper and darker than ever before. Deadlock in-vents harshly, and then the coldness sinks in – so bitterly cold, no frozen ice-planet in all the universe is as cold as this – you can see warm ex-vents turn into steam in the air, then fall to the floor as tiny ice crystals.

_There –_ Hot Rod whispers, spark to spark, quieter across your damaged bond now, whereas before he had been the proverbial _whump_ of a fire as it ignites, a ringing out like bells, the carrying voice in a hushed room. He will be that again, you swear.

You are in the cold and the dark, only the victorious maw and the lurid green optics visible, and you can hear it – Unicron. _Laughing._

You turn your attention to the echo attached to your own spark that Hot Rod is tugging at, something – _two somethings –_ you had not realised were there because they’d _always been there._

_Cyclonus – Scourge –_ your Hot Rod whispers, though it is unnecessary. Two thin trails of spark light fraying now from your own essence. Not spark bonds, exactly, but something perhaps a level below, the after-effects of being forged together, sharing frames in comfort and blurring EM fields with closeness and giving energy when times grew lean on Chaar – understanding and instinct and the way sparks resonate with each other, even when they have not touched.

_It is enough –_ your Hot Rod says, and this time you _know_ that whatever he is about to do is a product of whatever Vector Sigma and Primus did when they forged – or reforged, depending on the point of view – him anew. _Nearly –_ your Hot Rod amends. _I need – if you want them – I need to absorb some of Unicron’s power – a jumpstart – I’ll need to take a hit –_

_No –_ you think, wildly. _Foolish and dangerous –_

_Do you want them back or not? –_

You stutter to a mental halt. _Lose you and gain them, or gain them and lose you? –_ You are breathless with the unfairness of it all, a snarl upon your face.

_Take a risk –_ your Hot Rod argues back, _and maybe get both –_

_Chances? –_ you ask, because you have to ask, because your beloved is the counterweight of your world but your triad are the pivot in the middle. You _cannot_ lose _any of them!_

_Like draws to like – you could – I mean –_ he stutters, apologetic, and then you _know_ what he’s getting at.

You could open yourself up, welcome Unicron in instead of pushing him out. He would be in your mind, your spark, his darkness crawling over your frame like scraplets – only for a brief time, but – it’s your nightmare, _literally_ your nightmare, but –

But how much do you want Cyclonus and Scourge back? What would you do to have them returned to your side?

You gnash you denta harshly, and ease back a little from the bond. Hot Rod – _hides –_ behind your spark, you cannot describe it any other way, your infernal fire blazing bright while he tamps his own holy light – not _down –_ but matches it to yours, hides himself in your spark, _the reflection of light off the blade blinding sight of the blade itself –_

“Master…” you say, the word poison in your mouth, and tug open the hole in your mind, the wound left over when the chain Unicron placed upon you was yanked out by his death, in that time before –

Darkness pours in, filling you, and you can feel Unicron’s amusement, the way he thinks this is a last-ditch attempt at getting on his good side, trying to elicit his so-called _mercy,_ and it’s _horrifying,_ the way he strangles your spark in his grasp, the way he drowns your mind and thoughts away, the way this all feels so horrifically _natural_ that for a moment you wonder why you ever turned away from him, when you can _feel_ that darkness buoying your own tainted essence _up_ even as he drags your sense of self _down –_

And then there’s a burning, a bright and harrowing and _wonderful_ burning, as Hot Rod turns the Primal Light he clamped down on before _inward_ instead of outward. It’s more thready than earlier, your beloved tired and gasping, still fresh from death, his resurrection not even a day ago, rest not yet afforded to him –

Unicron shrieks, the sound cleaving through the world, above and below your auditory range simultaneously, a noise so terrible all three of you shrink in on yourselves. Unicron tears himself away from the chain he was reforging, link by link of darkness shredding away as it dissipates, and Hot Rod grasps for the vestiges of void he is leaving behind in his haste, and it _hurts him,_ you know it does, the Unmaker essence so opposed to his own Light that they can do naught but scrape against each other with licks of frozen fire, but –

Inside your spark, something chimes, Hot Rod channelling the Darkness down, wrapped in his own Light, and those two trailing echoes chime _back,_ and space-time shudders, a little, at the power of the two of you – both divinely chosen, both half-god – and the godly, if unholy, power of the Chaos Bringer _coming together and pressing against it –_

_Come back to me, brothers –_ you call. _Come and fight with me once more –_

You are vaguely aware of Hot Rod shouting in the background – “Inside! Get us inside!” – barely conscious of Deadlock firing the engines up to their maximum output, flying the shuttle in through the grinding maw.

Unicron’s clenching fist, as big as a city-state, misses the shuttle as it attempts to crush it, his optics too far away to safely smash through, so it’s into the planet-mode maw on the root-form chest that you all go, Hot Rod’s hand digging into yours, Deadlock’s frantic repeated curses background noise –

_My lord…-_ you hear Cyclonus murmur inside your spark, as the mountainous denta close behind you, and the world beyond shuts out, unreachable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not apologise in any way for leaning heavily into the demi-god aspects of these characters. Or for making Unicron an eldritch-horror themed entity. Also, Deadlock is having one hell of a day.
> 
> To clarify: Hot Rod and Galvatron's demi-god-like powers are actually very limited and are really only useful in this one very specific scenario (fighting Unicron - or, I suppose, fighting Primus). They have Primordial Light/Dark that's really only effective against someone else with Primordial Light/Dark. A.K.A. no one but each other/their gods.
> 
> Their layers-of-reality hopping abilities put immense strain on them, so they're really only usable as part of a battle strategy where the deck has been stacked so that the payoff equals/exceeds the risky investment, and they have to go one at a time. Like, Unicron and Primus have got access to the elevator - Hot Rod and Galvatron have to take the stairs.
> 
> Other than that? Hot Rod's his own personal night-light, and Galvatron can probably induce nightmares if he cares to (he does not care to). In all... in every-day life, they just don't use them. The risk is not worth the reward nine times out of ten, and also the strain is _painful_. I mean, this is both physical strain and _spark strain_ , so the medics have laid down the law on limited usage. 
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](https://stairre.tumblr.com/). Come and say hello!


	4. Hot Rod II

**Countervail**

**Part Four : Hot Rod II**

–

The inside of Unicron is mostly dark, whispery yet hushed with unnatural silence and stillness, stagnant, a strange blue-silver light illuminating from an unknown source, stretching shadows that seem to have a weight to them, like organic cobwebs, and all of it just like you remember it. This place has appeared in your dreams – nightmares, mostly – ever since your first, and, until now, only encounter with the place, and you can’t say you’re thrilled to be back here.

Galvatron is – distracted. You can feel the strengthening of the sparks of Cyclonus and Scourge as Galvatron drags them across the time-stream and into this new past – present? The future is unravelling like – like – you don’t really know what like. Textiles never really caught on with Cybertronians. Perhaps like braided hair with the ties and pins taken away – Carly used to do her hair up in a _professional bun –_ yes, that’s what she called it – and when she got out of work (it was usually you picking her up) she’d open your door, sit down in the passenger seat, set her bag down, and immediately raise her hands up to her hair, pulling out the pretty pins she used to keep it up, and her organic hair follicles would untwist, tumbling down around her shoulders in a shower of golden blonde as she shook her head.

It had fascinated you, at the time. Cybertronians have never had anything like it, and you had kinda envied the varying ways hair could be done up and made pretty with pins and accessories. Polishes and waxes and special one-cycle-only gloss paints were all apparently a thing pre-war, but you have never experienced them. Arcee used to reminisce of how she would go out most days with some sort of clear sparkle gloss on her lip plates, and even Springer and Kup could occasionally be heard to join in with complaining about the lack of _just some nice polish, Primus._

You want to stay by Galvatron, grip his arm in your hand and help keep him upright as he pulls with all his considerable might against the grain of space-time, but you just can’t afford to, and feelings can’t factor into snap tactical decisions – you’re an Autobot, so such practicality is not recognised as anything more than a necessary evil, but you have been a leader, even if it was a mantle you took up reluctantly, and by force, and you have more immediately important things to deal with.

Besides, Galvatron’s pedes are planted wide and steady on the floor, and you know he won’t fall. His optics are shuttered tightly closed, and his face is twisted in a silent snarl, the type that is not born of aggression, but rather immense physical strain, but there’s nothing more you can do to help him, and right now, with the Unmaker surrounding you on all sides, sentiment can’t lock you in useless place next to him. That would be the death of all of you, and you have come too far to die so stupidly, so worthlessly.

(Your last death had not been stupid, not been worthless, not been a failure, and in that you take some horrendously morbid comfort… though it had, perhaps, still been a _waste._

You had not _wanted_ to die. Duty is duty, though, and duty cares not for desire.

And, _oh,_ how you want Galvatron’s utterly insane, completely out-the-box plan to succeed. Being able to marry together your sense of duty and the softer, more selfish things you desire… if it’s possible, then _you want it._ You want it more than anything else in your life.

Before, there had been two choices before you, neither of them striking the balance that would bring you true fulfilment: you could have had Galvatron and left behind duty, and lived in a happiness stained with guilt, tattered by rage as you looked upon injustices you could not right unless you wanted to tear apart your world; or you could have fulfilled your duty to the hilt, and lost yourself in a life with nothing to colour it, seething with desperation for freedom even as you tightened your hold on your chains.

But _now –_ getting _both?_ A life with love and happiness _tempered,_ but not _chained,_ with the sense of justice and care that lives so deeply in your spark? You are breathless with your own want, your spark pulsing heavy, and no wretched Chaos Bringer is going to _take it away!)_

Instead, you stand over Deadlock in the pilot’s chair, your hand gripping the back of it and making the battered padding creak a little. Deadlock’s already tried to flick on the forward lights of the shuttle, but the bright beams are not penetrating this darkness, not well, like it’s fog and not shadows. His curses have gone quiet now, though he’s tense and his EM field is kind of silently screaming in a way you feel a lot of empathy for. You’re sure you were about the same, the first time.

“Land as far in as you can get,” you tell him, low, not even realising until after you’ve said it that you’re commanding him as though he were an Autobot, how he’s already been subconsciously filed away in your processor as _one of mine._

But Deadlock obeys instantly, taking the shuttle down, landing it heavily on the metal floor of Unicron’s internals. The sound is not nearly as loud as it should be, and the jarring somehow not as sharp a sensation, as though your sensory input processing is lagging, growing lethargic.

It could be, and that’s not a comforting thought. Fighting Unicron is bad enough. Fighting Unicron while essentially _inebriated?_ Haha – _no –_ you do _not_ want.

Now that the immediate threat of being swatted out of space by a hand the size of a city has passed, you take just one moment to consolidate yourself towards the idea before saying to Deadlock, “The crate with your things is in the hab opposite the one we put you in. Collect them, arm yourself. This isn’t over yet.”

The Decepticon Sacrator – who _was_ your prisoner and probably isn’t anymore – looks at you, red optics to blue, before rising, stepping uneasily past the muttering Galvatron, and vanishing into the hall. You have just armed a mech who might still prove an enemy, but there’s not much you can do about it now. You just hope that self-preservation in the face of Unicron and Galvatron both will stay Deadlock’s hand, at least until all this is over and you can drop him off at a space station somewhere.

“Galvatron?” you ask.

He stiffens at your question, stock still except for the way his vents wheeze, and then he turns. Glowing bright in his hands, hovering above his palms with coronas wisping at the edges of his digits, two sparks sit. _Cyclonus. Scourge._

“They cannot build their own frames,” Galvatron rasps, vocaliser hoarse with unseen strain. “But I have them once more.”

“You’ve got their schematics, though, right?” you ask.

“Of course,” Galvatron says, and it would be a scoff, but he never speaks to _you_ quite so condescendingly, so instead it is merely brusque.

“There aren’t any stabilisation tanks – ” you begin, unease floating through you, but you are interrupted.

“Won’t need them,” Galvatron says. “Our sparks are not so vulnerable to dispersion.”

You take that in a moment, the concept strange enough to be almost frightening. Spark energy is kept stable in exactly two places: a spark chamber, or a stabilisation tank, which is essentially an artificial spark chamber. Sparks can remain stable for only so long without one, their energy slowly dispersing and fading if it gets damaged or lost – sparks are electrical energy and data, at their most basic elements, the physical souls of your people. After dispersion, there is death, and the Well of All Sparks. If the Unicronian triad’s sparks will remain stable for longer –

You shake your head of the thought. Now is not the time to linger on the horror that comes with knowing that Unicron altered them so very deeply, on such a fundamental level. You knew he had, of course, but sometimes things still pop up that prove you have not yet managed to think that implication all the way through to the many consequences of it. “Where would be safe for them?”

Galvatron frowns, gaze turning inward, before he says, “I’ll put them in my own chamber. We are three. They are mine.”

You suck in a vent, cycle it through your systems, ex-vent the recycled ship air. That’s _intimate,_ anything to do with sparks always is, but you are not actually surprised by this turn of events. Outsiders do not truly manage to grasp how close the Unicronian triad are, deceived by their often apparently-harsh treatment of each other. There is something to be said of being forged together, and _you_ don’t have any co-creations, but you’ve been given a front-row seat to the Unicronian triad for decades now, and you know it is an understanding that runs base-coding deep.

Deadlock comes back in then, takes one look at the two sparks held in Galvatron’s hands, and does a double-take. His optics turn to you – why you? – but upon seeing that you’re not panicking about it, he steps past Galvatron again, giving your beloved a wide berth – you don’t blame him – and up next to you, a different modded rifle held ready in his hands, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Springer.

“Where to?” he asks, and you exchange a look with Galvatron.

“CPU core won’t work again,” you say. “Too far away to get there before something gets _us.”_

Galvatron twitches his hands closer to his chest, clearly eager to open it and place his triad-mates inside, but you know he won’t with Deadlock there. “Spark chamber, perhaps,” he replies. “We’re stronger than before, but with less precision. Last time was a knife sliding straight through the weak spot – this time, we are a sea storm, and we must take care not to batter ourselves uselessly against his cliffs.”

You nod in agreement. Your Primal Light is not weak, not even now, when you’ve already spent so much of it, but underestimating the power of the Dark is folly. Unicron’s shadows may scatter before your light, but that doesn’t mean he’s powerless. The opposite, in fact. Without the ability to face you head-on, he’s more likely to get… creative.

Galvatron twitches again, impatient, and you decide to get Deadlock out of the area. “Come on,” you say to him, jerking your head towards the doors, “let’s go.”

You go first, sliding the doors open with a low rattle, stepping out into the dark and the cold. Ice is no longer forming from your ex-vents, but that doesn’t mean much. It’s awfully, eerily familiar, a scene straight from your nightmares, replaying again. Deadlock follows, one step behind, and you should feel uneasy to have a potential enemy at your back, but his EM field is scared-but-determined, tinged a little with both suspended horror and fearful awe. Right now, you know, Deadlock won’t be an issue.

Unicron’s maw is on his chest in root mode, you recall, thinking back. The spark chamber – holding whatever passes for the Unmaker’s spark – is, hypothetically, not far away. The Chaos Bringer is still the size of a planet, though, and that could still be dozens, if not _hundreds,_ of mecha-miles. The interiors are impossible to traverse in alt mode, though, so you’re stuck with walking. _Running_ into the darkness will just get you swallowed whole.

The sound of footsteps behind you comes through clearly, not muffled by darkness the way yours and Deadlock’s are. Galvatron doesn’t shut the shuttle door, leaving it open for the hasty escape you’ll have to make, judging by what happened last time, the sparks of his triad nowhere in sight. Deadlock glances at him, at the way your beloved is at home in the darkness you and he are slowly drowning in, and steps – between you and Galvatron?

Galvatron snorts. “Desist, Sacrator,” he says. “I hardly mean my own spark-mate _harm.”_

“You are the Herald,” Deadlock says, his tone making it clear that he had not quite believed until right now, comprehension dawning further with every word. “Are you not an enemy to the – Chosen?”

“Once,” Galvatron glares. “But those chains do not bind me any more.”

“Leave it be, Deadlock,” you tell him, though a part of you is touched by what Deadlock tried to do – protect you – with his own limited knowledge. Imagine: a Decepticon Sacrator – protecting _you!_ You suppose it’s probably a consequence of him being a religious mech, but still. There are not many who would stand in front of Galvatron and try to deny him, not with knowledge of _what_ he is. “We are, indeed, beloved to each other. Don’t – assume things. The old stories are old: we are something _new.”_

Deadlock looks at you, and you look back, steady, sure, and he flicks his finials and steps away, clearing the path for Galvatron to come to you. Your mate takes your hand, your EM fields meshing together for just one moment, and stares out into the shadows. You wonder if his optics can see more than yours.

“This way,” Galvatron declares, letting go and marching forward into the gloom. You follow him, and Deadlock follows you.

–

On and on, into the dark, you go. The shadows writhe like living things, curling and tugging like you’re walking through a forest on Earth, but these are not leafy fronds against your plating, harmless and delicate. Galvatron is hiding you from the sights of Unicron, layering a veil of spiritual darkness around the three of you, but Unicron knows you’re here _somewhere,_ so that won’t work forever.

Deadlock shudders, so new to this horror, and you blindly stretch back and squeeze his arm with your hand, sending a roll of _determination-comfort-confidence_ through your EM field to him, hiding your own fear. He startles a little, but does not whip his own EM field against your own in a rejection, so you assume it must be welcome.

“Why isn’t…” Deadlock starts, low, almost inaudible in the unnatural hush. “What you did before – why hasn’t he done that?”

“What, switching layers?” you ask, glancing back.

Deadlock grimaces. “If that’s what you did,” he says. “Whatever that thing was, that – other place.”

“Different layer of reality,” you clarify for him. “And he hasn’t done it because, er, hm.” You think about how to phrase it. “Simplified,” you start slowly, “this layer, the one you’ve lived your whole life in, is where he’s got a physical frame. Below he doesn’t, and to dive down there would drag us with him, and if we all go non-physical, then there’ll be nothing between him and the Primal Light I’ve got. No armour at all, no protection.”

Deadlock nods at your admittedly very haphazard explanation. You think he’s just happy with knowing that there’s a reason why, even if he doesn’t fully understand it. “Primal Light?” he asks, and, yeah, you knew he would at some point. He’s seen the glyphs, the way the Unmaker shrank back, and _you_ have seen the almost-reverence he’s since been treating you with. It puts you in mind of the few Autobot priests you’ve had to interact with, which always makes you awkward. Chosen or not, you’re still a mech, not a walking religious idol, golden on a pedestal.

“Primal Light, Light of Primus, it has a few names,” you answer. “The Matrix of Leadership contains a fair amount of it, too. It’s, er…” you trail off, not knowing quite how to describe it concisely.

Galvatron speaks up from in front. “Light is the only thing that drives away darkness,” he says, loud where you and Deadlock are quiet. “And this particular Light is the only thing that can hurt the Chaos Bringer’s Dark.” He turns his head, meeting your optics, and adds on, bragging, “My mate is the Chosen One, the light to banish away the dark, the torch to guide the way.”

You sigh at that, even though you know that Galvatron is incredibly proud of your status, and is constantly urging you to throw the weight you’ve been given around more.

“A Prime?” Deadlock asks, and his optics sharpen at the wince you cannot help but flash across your face. Ahead, Galvatron growls wordlessly.

“I was,” you say, because what use is there in denial? You were, and now you won’t be again. The memory files still hurt, still cling, but there’s another option now, and though a part of you wants to hide it, a larger part of you knows that doing so would hurt you more farther down the road. “Once.”

Deadlock absorbs that. “Once?”

“Never again,” Galvatron snarls, and Deadlock is smart enough to know that that’s the end of that.

–

You get farther than you think you will before Unicron clocks that the spiritual shadow Galvatron is draping around you is not one of his own twisted internal defences, but rather the Herald that has turned against him.

Instantly, the atmosphere around you changes. Centuries of experience light your instincts up, cycling your combat programming into high alert, as the unmistakeable feeling of being caught in a sniper’s crosshairs centres on you. Deadlock twitches beside you, hands shifting on his rifle, while Galvatron’s cannon hums, your mate raising his arm and aiming it into the gloom. Your own triple barrel lasers are already hot, and you illuminate the headlights on your chest, now that you’re no longer trying to hide, hoping their fractured beams will give you even an astro-second’s more warning for whatever’s coming.

You get a brief glimpse of a mouth with too many jaws, and far, _far_ too many denta. Whatever it is, it’s fast and it’s _big,_ a shivering mass of gaseous clouds, and through the open mouth you can see the void at the back of its intake, a black hole given something almost physical in form. Then your headlights flicker out.

Galvatron fires his cannon, the plasma charge flash bright and sudden, and the mouth swallows it whole and keeps on coming, unfazed.

Deadlock and you fire next, but the bolts only pass through the monster, as useful as shooting smoke. All three of you dive to the sides to avoid the thing as it swoops through where you had been standing not two astro-seconds ago. You open your mouth to shout out _Run!_ but Galvatron has other plans:

“Grab onto me!” he roars, and you’re doing it before you know it, grasping the counterweight of his alt mode – the ‘tail’ that rises from his back – in one hand and Deadlock’s arm in the other, careful not to get in his way as Galvatron turns to face the creature head-on.

It turns around, charges again, and you don’t know what Galvatron’s going to do until Deadlock tugs backwards, trying to get away, and Galvatron catches the jaws – they seem to be the only half-way physical parts this thing has – in his hands, stretching them wide, the creature and your mate struggling against each other.

“What – ?” Deadlock gasps, panicked, as you feel the warm darkness of Galvatron’s EM field surge and swell, cloaking you all in a bubble as he opens the creature’s mouth wider and wider, heedless of the energon seeping from the cuts on his hands, until the mouth is so wide it could swallow all of you whole. You grip him tighter, fingers leaving dents on his armour, and, seeing the plan – though knowing not the logic – duck your head down, compacting your frame smaller.

Finally, after a glance back, Galvatron lets go. The creature’s mouth swallows all three of you, and you fall into it, caught in the gravitational pull, the three of you clinging tight to each other.

There’s a spinning sensation, like you’ve been tossed into a tornado, tumbling about. Galvatron’s EM field whirls around you, lashing at every point, and you can hear a high-pitched screech, the feeling of something tearing, and then you’re spat out, clanging onto the cold floor. You heave in a vent, gyros spinning, and roll off Deadlock, bringing your lasers up.

The creature is – eating itself is the only term you have for it. Deadlock rises up next to you, and you echo the disgust roiling in his EM field as the many-jawed mouth devours itself, hungry, blind. Galvatron rises last, hands bleeding heavily, dented and battered, but viciously smug as he oversees the demise of the thing.

“What did you do?” you gasp out, still cycling heavy vents, more against the nausea curdling in your fuel tanks than anything. You certainly aren’t _warm_ in this frozen darkness.

“Like calls to like,” Galvatron echoes your words from earlier. “For a beast made of shadows, it is so very susceptible to illusions itself – it doesn’t recognise them as false readings, has no capacity to. I convinced it its enemy was within, and this is its response.”

“Huh,” you say. You look around, now that the immediate danger has passed. Above your head, a giant crystalline structure spreads, as large as, frag, probably an entire mountain range, or a sea, or a desert. It seems to have no end, shining from within with a light that makes black spots appear in your vision, like you're watching a star being consumed by a black hole, the light so bright cutting off so suddenly into a place it cannot escape, all the brighter for the contrast.

Galvatron follows your gaze, stills, and then barks out a nasty laugh. “We’re here,” he proclaims.

“Where?” Deadlock asks, staring up briefly before lowering his head and squinting into the darkness surrounding you, the light from above not washing it away.

You clock it suddenly, the structure nagging familiarity at you until your memory files finally offer up what sized-up component this could be. “Spark chamber,” you breathe.

Galvatron laughs again. “The black hole that’s always hungry,” he muses. “Fitting that the creature would drag us here – back to its birth-place, no doubt, to be fed properly to the gluttonous core. I thought it would take us to the primary fuel pump perhaps, but this is better.”

You nod in agreement and say, “Let’s not waste time. He must already know we’re here.”

Galvatron offers you his hand, palm up, and you place yours in his. Then, before you manage to tug your much-abused bond open again, Galvatron turns his head to face Deadlock, and you pause.

“Deadlock,” Galvatron commands, “shoot whatever defences the Destroyer tries to level against us.”

Deadlock nods, raising his rifle to a ready position. Already, there is a shivering in the darkness, a scuttling of things beyond sight.

You wonder only a brief moment at Galvatron using Deadlock’s _name,_ and not just calling him _you_ , the way he is prone to doing to anyone he has no real attachment to, but discard the thought for later. You turn your head to meet Galvatron’s optics instead, plucking at the bond for his attention, and when he narrows his optical shutters and sets his mouth into a grim line, you mesh your EM field to his and try to open the bond as gently – yet swiftly – as possible.

Your powers destroying Unicron’s physical form together – it is necessary, this time. You have not the Matrix, that keen and concentrated core of Primal Light placed there by Primus, undiluted by your own mortal spark, to hand. Otherwise, the Light you turned on him earlier, when you were drawing him in to help boost the strength of Cyclonus and Scourge’s leftover spark data, enough to use as anchors to pull them through, would have been enough.

On a personal level, you’re more powerful, less restrained that you were before, no longer tied to the Matrix. But it’s a unique power, now, touched and turned by your own spark, and Galvatron’s own divine-granted power is necessary to exorcise Unicron. You are not – and have not – pure Creation to match Unicron’s pure Destruction, but Order and Chaos are made – _meant,_ you think blasphemously – to flow together, to swirl and combine and be greater than they are apart.

Your Primal Light will hurt him, but light shines brighter in the dark, and that boost Galvatron will give you… You will be enough – _more_ than enough – to push Unicron out and close the door behind him.

You squeeze Galvatron’s hand, tight, the kind of tight you would grip if you were dangling off the edge of a cliff, painful and desperate to succeed, to live. Your bond still hurts, is still frayed, and the pressure the two of you have been putting on it isn’t helping, but once again you reach across it, and sink your spark into your mate’s, Cyclonus and Scourge lingering in the background, like feeling their EM fields from across a room, thankfully not distracting.

You can feel Galvatron’s anger, his fear, his hatred of his fear, and his utter spiteful determination – tempered by a selfish care for a select few – to see Unicron gone forever. You embrace it, knowing that Galvatron will never love or care the same way you can love or care, accepting him as he is: brilliant and angry and possessive. Loving, in his own way, deep and focused, points of burning fire in a cold landscape.

He’ll never extend much empathy for people he doesn’t know, might not even be able to – even now, he cares for the distant sparks of Cybertron only because you do – but he is more apathetic than cruel, and even if he does not understand why you feel so deeply for strangers, he has never stopped you or tried to convince you not to do so, and the least you can do is return the favour he has always extended you of not trying to force a change in who he is.

The essences of Chaos and Darkness and Destruction seep in, Galvatron unlocking them from the place he keeps them under strict control, and you swell with and join them with your own Primus-given Order and Light and Creation. They feel different than the pure Dark of Unicron or what the Matrix felt like when it still hummed inside your chest. They feel like you. They feel like Galvatron.

Somewhere outside of yourself, you can hear blaster bolts being shot, and by the frequency of them, Deadlock is hard at work defending you and Galvatron from whatever shadowy beasts are trying to kill you. But – for Unicron – it is too late.

You feel the warmth under your plating and the shine coming through your shuttered optics as glyphs light up on your frame, something hot swelling inside your chest, like a balloon, and you’re about fit to burst. Your hand in Galvatron’s is heated, and though the Dark is cold, Galvatron is not.

Somewhere, too high and too low and too much for your audios, Unicron is screaming.

“ _ **No! No…!”**_

There’s a rumbling, a creaking and a tearing and a crashing, all so very familiar. Your optical feed, even through the protection of the shutters, offlines in an automatic safety lock as the Primal Light you’re shining grows to be too much. Deadlock’s gun goes silent, and it’s not until there’s a hand wrapping around your arm and pulling you roughly out of the way of a piece of falling metal, that you jolt out of the bond and back to reality.

“Outside, we have to get outside!” you shout, already yanking Galvatron’s hand in yours as the three of you run for the edge of the room, trying to see an entrance as the giant spark crystal above falls and shatters around you, covering all three of you in numerous cuts as the shards fly from their impacts and shear through armour. Galvatron takes the lead, and you can feel the Dark welling, not just from Unicron’s spiritual wounds, but from Galvatron grasping threads of space-time and tugging on them to make the three of you an emergency exit.

“ _ **You cannot – destroy – my destiny!”**_ Unicron howls, echoing, but it’s rather too late for _him,_ you think viciously.

Finally, Galvatron finds some place – it all looks the same to you, but it mustn’t to him – and fires his cannon, the blast taking down an apparent wall and opening it out on to a dark corridor. He charges in, just like how he charges an enemy line on a battlefield, and you run after him, unhesitant. Deadlock follows, because, well, where else is he going to go?

You remember before, that first frantic dash out of the imploding god, but you’re not in his head this time, you’re in his chest, and there is a significant difference in the size of those two body parts. Still, Galvatron is folding space-time as you go, and the dark corridor – however long it is – shortens in length as he wrinkles space, bringing distances closer together, and you cannot see a thing but the writhing dark and Galvatron’s back, the golden glyphs still lingering on your armour the only light source that isn’t optics.

Then the shuttle is before you, gold light spilling over the Decepticon sigil, the symbol of the Sacratores, and you’re racing up the ramp and diving for the cockpit as fast as you can. Deadlock closes the door behind you, while you launch yourself towards the lever that will override the standard safety features and allow the engines to cold start without delay. Ice crystals are still scattered on the floor from earlier, unmelted. Galvatron stands at the flight controls, not even bothering to sit, tugging the yoke and jabbing his fingers to buttons so hard you worry for one moment that they might break.

The engines screech online, unhealthy sounding, but the ship lurches up into the air, if ungracefully, and that’s good enough, you suppose.

Galvatron activates the forward lasers on the shuttle, and you take control of them over so he can concentrate on flying, blasting non-stop as he takes you all directly at the expanse of cracking metal, glimpses of the stars peaking through as the darkness falters in its shroud. The ship has reinforced armour for ramming, a standard addition since the war began, and Galvatron smashes straight through, out of Unicron, flying fast into space. Memories of the other timeline weigh heavily upon both of you – you have to get out of the blast zone.

“Primus,” Deadlock whispers shakily behind you, watching Unicron through the viewport.

Galvatron steers the shuttle through the flailing continent-sized limbs unerringly, with a deft skill given by Unicron and perfected by partnering with Cyclonus. The shuttle is groaning around you, but it holds, enough that when ominous blades of green light begin to split Unicron open from the inside – _ **“**_ _ **Nooooo!”**_ – and the explosion begins, the shuttle is far enough away that it only pushes you farther, more than a little turbulently, instead of disintegrating the three of you.

It’s not exactly elegant. The internal gravity of the shuttle doesn’t adjust for the sudden rolling you’re doing, so all three of you fly about like you’re trapped inside a tin can whirling about in a tornado, but after several moments, the stabilisers come back online and right the ship. The three of you are in a tangled heap at the bottom of one wall, but _you’re alive._

You lie there for an astro-second, Deadlock’s elbow jabbing into your abdomen and Galvatron’s knee into the small of your back. You’d say it’s because there’s a heavy metaphysical weight pinning you down, some duty or task that’s too much to face, but it’s actually the exact opposite: the universe… it feels so much _lighter._ If you start to move you might float away. You hadn’t realised it, last time, how freeing the absence of Unicron was, not as submersed in Light the way you are now.

“He’s gone,” you gasp out, almost deliriously. Not from existence, of course, for the universe – the _multiverse –_ requires the balance of both Order and Chaos, Light and Dark, Creation and Destruction. But – he’s no longer free to wreak havoc in this universe, the one you call home, and that’s good enough. That’s a victory.

Galvatron begins a hacking laugh. Deadlock’s just kind of wheezing with a delayed panic reaction. “We are victorious,” Galvatron gloats. “He has fallen to his own arrogance once more.”

Unicron’s severed head floats by the viewport. The lights from the shuttle reflect off his unbroken optics, like he’s looking directly at you, accusing, and you shudder and roll out of the pile of limbs.

Your back hurts as you kneel, then rise to your pedes. All of your frame does, one massive throbbing ache, despite the fact that it is so _new._ Well, that’s the price of switching planes of existence several times in a day, not to mention the heavy usage of Primal Light. These things – they are not without cost. Your spark hurts as it spins inside its chamber.

Galvatron extracts himself from Deadlock and sways upright as well, reaching out and tugging you to him. You laugh, suddenly, gripping him as tight, high on that post-combat rush and nearly giddy as with every passing second the reality of your victory – of your _second chance –_ becomes stronger, realer, something less like a dream. You stumble out, pulling Galvatron’s head down to you, “Slaggin’ _kiss me_ – how have you not _kissed me yet – ”_

Galvatron kisses you, deep, claiming, his hands clamped around your back and his EM field so merged with yours you can barely tell where yours ends and his begins.

Off to the side, you can hear Deadlock say dryly, “It’s okay, I’ll fly the shuttle,” but you don’t care about the world outside of Galvatron’s arms right now, the universe that exists outside the taste of his lips and the warmth of his spark pulsing against yours. You don’t care at all.

–

The three of you discover that Unicron’s head – and some other pieces of his frame – have been caught in the gravity well of a planet. You discover this by only just avoiding getting sucked into it yourselves.

Once the brief panic is over, Deadlock – who’s taken over the controls of the shuttle once again, and neither you nor Galvatron have yet tried to take them back, too wrapped up in each other – sets the battered shuttle’s scanners to use and tries to triangulate where exactly you’ve ended up by comparing the surroundings and the planetary system to the old star-maps loaded into the data-banks. With how far you might or might not have gone while playing lure in the layer just below, you honestly could be _anywhere._

“No matches,” Deadlock sighs, after some time has passed. “This is the report for the planet, though.”

He gestures at the screen, looking to you. You pause a moment – why not Galvatron? He’s the one with the Decepticon sigil – and step forward to lean over his shoulder, well aware that this puts you into his close-combat range, but you aren’t getting that feeling from him, and you are curious.

Below, the planet has some immense natural resources. It’s got thick veins of a variety of different metals, an atmosphere not too dissimilar to Cybertron’s pre-war one – before all the chemical weapons changed it forever – and though it only has limited natural energon crystals, it’s got two suns and a rotation that means that the hours when there’s true darkness are short, perfect for a solar-conversion energon plant.

“How very convenient,” Galvatron scoffs from behind. “An unplundered paradise, just – _handed_ to us.”

“It’s not debt if it’s what they want, too,” you remind him. “They have a lot riding on the success of this.” You have no doubt that Primus pulled _some_ strings in the fabric of reality to deliver you here. It is, as your beloved said, too convenient to be otherwise.

Galvatron sighs, put upon, but you know he’s too practical to turn it down, even as he seethes with a low-burning anger. He hates the gods on principle, and he hates it even more when they’re actually _trying_ to make things right. You let it go. You’re not the biggest fan yourself, but you believe in second chances, truly and deeply, and if Primus is willing to try, then so are you.

“ _Fine,”_ Galvatron says. “We’ll found it here.” He turns to Deadlock. “You, get us down to the surface.” Then he walks away, probably to either sulk, murmur to Cyclonus and Scourge privately, or both.

“You, er,” Deadlock starts, awkwardly. “You said something earlier about – first citizen?”

You blink, surprised, and yet not actually all that shocked. There’s nothing like a trial by fire – or trial by Unicron – to change someone’s whole world-view. “Yeah,” you say. “We’re gonna build a place, somewhere new, away from the war. Um – you’re welcome to join if you want?”

Deadlock studies you, tilting his head. He looks you up and down, from your optics to your pedes to your bare chest-plate.

“Yeah,” he says, and it’s not your imagination that there’s some spark of hope in his optics, is it? “I think I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Local Eldritch God Defeated By The Power Of Love (And Spite).
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day! Also, Deadlock really did just latch straight on to Hot Rod, didn't he? "I've only had this weird maybe-Prime for like half a day, but if anything ever happens to him, I'll kill everyone in this room and then myself." 
> 
> For a meta post with some interesting old canon that informs me on why I feel literally zero guilt for leaning heavily into the sci-fi fantasy side of Galvatron and Hot Rod, look [here](https://stairre.tumblr.com/post/642503550056955904/primus-nepotism-long-post). 
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](https://stairre.tumblr.com/). Come and say hello!


	5. Deadlock

**Countervail**

**Epilogue : Deadlock**

–

The smell of incense fills the air, spicy and sharp, swirling deep in your vents as you watch the smoke curling from the hanging lamp on the altar. This one’s imported from Jibrai, after Lord Hot Rod secured a trade deal with them, and he’d pushed the box of incense oil into your hands as mecha had unloaded the first shipment, smiling, saying that he knew you’d wanted some better quality stuff about.

Thoughtful, is Primus’ Chosen. It shouldn’t surprise you, and it doesn’t – of _course_ Primus’ Chosen has deep compassion and empathy – but it’s still a little startling, sometimes, that Lord Hot Rod would still continue to seek you out, despite the fact that he is more than busy. There are enough mecha on Aedis now that you’ve been able to take a small step back from the general administration of the planet, and focus your attentions on the growing temple at the heart of the First City, but – it’s nice, to not be forgotten in the bustle.

You inhale the scent of incense deep, cycling it through your ventilation systems, and watch as the last of the oil burns down, smoke wafting through the room, rising up in thin trails to linger above in the high arches of the temple. It’s empty, almost dark, and you are kneeling alone at the main altar.

Normally, the temple is never empty, always at least one priest awake to tend to the hearth, the altar, the mecha welcome at any time… but today is unusual, the populace is nervous, and Lord Hot Rod and Lord Galvatron want you there to greet the envoys with them. You’re praying alone, morning light barely slanting through the stained crystal-glass, warm in the heat from the hearth, for the continuance of the Light That Banishes The Dark, before you turn your duties over to another, and make your way to the House of Dawn.

You vent deep, stand, your cloak brushing the marble floor in a ripple of glistening ultra-thin metallic threads, and send the wireless command for the great sky lights to have their shutters slide open, pale light pouring into the hall, the orange warmth of the great hearth no longer making the shadows dance and flicker. Your internal chronometer tells you it is nearly time to leave.

Your steps echo as you slip into the small corridor off to one side, passing the Autobot priest who will be taking your place in guiding morning prayers today. He nods to you, and you nod back, and neither of you cringe or shy away from the red symbol on his chest or the purple symbol on yours.

“Let it be an auspicious day,” Greybolt says, quiet, shuttering his blue optics, “and may the Light shine clear, High Sacrator Deadlock.”

“May it shine on your path, too.” You nod to him again, and sweep past, heading for your quarters.

–

_That first night, as you land the ship down on the planet, Hot Rod and Galvatron – you don’t yet call them your **lords,** but the thought is already there, caught in the strength of their auras and the knowledge that up above the Chaos Bringer’s dismembered head is fast on its way to becoming a moon for this planet – take one hab suite, and you take the other. _

_Galvatron glares at you as he shuts the door, and you know that if you were to make the mistake of trying to enter their room without warning he would shoot first and ask questions later. That’s fine. You’re not planning to. You set the ship’s automatic defences running for the night, and lock your own door. It’s been – a day – but trust is not kindled as quickly as hope, and you recharge with your blaster tucked into your side._

_The lights in the hab are turned up to 40%. You don’t think you could handle total darkness, the shadows still feeling cold, too alive, too dead, and you can hardly believe it’s **over** but you can also hardly believe it **began.** Behind your optical shutters, golden glyphs scroll, but this is not a vision, this is just a memory file._

_You do not dream, and you think it a blessing._

–

The House of Dawn is the main governmental building in the First City; it holds administrative offices, meeting rooms, the Echo Chamber – where the heads of the guilds and group representatives debate – and (one of) the Throne Halls. It sits in a beautiful square, a crystal fountain and small lush garden in the middle, the House of Justice sitting opposite, the House of Trade and the House of Unity on the two remaining sides.

You arrive in alt form, driving ‘til the road ends and it’s walkways the rest of the way. The square is open to the public, and so are the entry halls of each of the Houses. There are security guards and locked doors between the public areas and the rest, of course, but it means a lot to Lord Hot Rod that the general populace will never be unwelcome to make appointments with the ones who make the decisions that affect them and their lives, to have their voice heard.

It’s still strange, a little. The governmental set-up is some mix of Decepticon tradition and Autobot tradition, and – it works, actually. It works well. Lord Galvatron and Lord Hot Rod rule at the top, with equal power, though they focus their primary attentions to different areas, so that nothing is left by the wayside: Lord Galvatron to the external defences, the security for Aedis’ trade vessels, and internal law and order; Lord Hot Rod to negotiating external treaties and trade agreements, internal well-being, and the social and physical infrastructure of their society.

Below them, the representatives voted into the Echo Chamber; leaders of guilds, representatives of the varying groups, the heads of the hospitals, the schools, the head architect, the foreman of the miners – everyone has _someone_ to speak for them. That’s where the mix comes in; having a circle of advisors is integral to both ‘Cons and ‘Bots, though the voting is new.

Autobot tradition would just send whoever is in charge, Decepticon whoever is most suited to the task – and, fair, the two often overlap, but Decepticons have a cultural respect for those who can wage verbal battles to get what they want – which Autobots tend to grimace at and decry as _manipulative_ or some such, even when it’s as serious a task as securing resources necessary for survival – and sometimes that person isn’t whoever is in charge, though often trusted by, or an advisor to, whoever is.

The _voting_ for who would go is unique to Aedis, as far as you know, but you like it. It means that there’s no incompetence in the Echo Chamber, which is something Lord Galvatron _cannot stand,_ and Lord Hot Rod frowns at. Your two rulers have no time to waste listening to people who cannot just bring up what they need, why they need it, and their plan of action of what to do with it once obtained.

The two lords will make adjustments and arrangements for their people – and it is the people’s job to not let their efforts go to waste. The straight-forward approach is quite Autobot, but the collecting of a good argument for why such resources should be budgeted to you is more Decepticon. Honesty and reason, picking out the best of both traditions.

You walk up the steps to the House of Dawn, nodding to the guards at the door, who nod back, because you’re one of the Voices of the Echo Chamber, representing the Order of the Sacratores, along with your counterpart, the Autobot High Priest, and wonder just what it is that the – _visitors_ – will think of Aedis, and of your chosen lords.

–

“ _Here,” says Galvatron, stopping in place, pointing at a piece of rocky ground that looks identical to every other piece of rocky ground. You come to a stop next to him._

“ _Below?” Hot Rod asks, peering at the ground._

“ _Yes, not deep,”_ _Galvatron_ _says._

“ _What is it?” you ask, because you’ve gotten the sense over the past few days that over half of their conversations don’t happen out loud, and being out of loop is frustrating._

“ _What?” Hot Rod blinks. “Oh! There’s a small energon crystal deposit here. Galvatron’s been scanning for one, to get us started.”_

_**That takes specialised scanners,** you think, but do not say. Galvatron doesn’t look like a miner, he looks like a war-build, but – rebuilds happen. Lord Megatron used to be an underground drill-laser, not a rifle, and you’d never guess it by now. _

_You slide that information away into your growing files on these two – already, they are full of mysteries and contradictions, none of which you can yet align, though by their abilities to laugh at the laws of time and space, you think that maybe all these pieces won’t ever click together unless they sit down and explain, and you don’t see that happening any time soon._

_Galvatron pauses in place, scanning again. Then, with a whine of capacitors cycling up, barely enough warning to get clear, he primes his arm cannon and shoots the ground. Dust and rocks scatter everywhere, and you cover your face, feeling fortunate that you managed to seal your vents in time._

_Galvatron does it again, making the hole deeper and wider, then a third and fourth time. After a couple of minutes, the dust cloud clears, and you can see the pink shine of glowing crystals at the bottom. Enough to not worry about rations for quite some time, even with Galvatron being of a frame type that takes a lot of fuel. Enough to get the small fabricator on the ship up and running, and with the resources you know are around to feed it, you’ll be able to get the parts to make a larger fabricator in no time._

_From there…_

“ _So. Settlement?” you say, their plan suddenly smacking the reality of **actually-this-could-happen** in your mind. Before it had seemed a lovely hope, a dream they were chasing, even with the bounties of this planet, but – _

_But suddenly you have energon, have natural resources, have the ship with the fabricator, have a mech with specialised scanners to find the resources to feed it, have two mecha divinely touched and ready to work hard. The idea turns from a long-term dream to a series of short-term goals. You’ve already thrown your lot in with them, entranced by the glyphs, by their **killing of the Unmaker,** but it’s with a jolt that you suddenly realise you aren’t a side character in a fairytale. _

“ _Yeah,” Hot Rod hums. “These’ll be a good start to get some parts. Fabricator first, yeah?” He looks to Galvatron, who nods in agreement. “Then a solar generator, I think.”_

_This is real. So, so real. You are almost breathless with how it feels to be a part of something that’s **real.** The war has gone on so long… it’s a nightmare, a never-ending one, it seems, with **living** secondary to **survival.** Thinking of it like that, instead of thinking of it as your **life,** has gotten you through a lot of the war. It’s a nightmare, and one day you’ll wake up. When it’s over._

“ _Your subspace is empty, right?” Galvatron asks Hot Rod, planning out the logistics of getting as many crystals back to the ship as possible. “We’ll fill it ‘til it’s 40% full – we need to pick up some ore as well. I’ve got some on my scanners…”_

_**If this is but another dream,** you think, shuttering your optics, **then I don’t want to wake up.**_

–

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Lord Hot Rod says when you walk into the room, smiling. It’s one of the meeting rooms, and right now you’re gathering a small number of the Voices – who, when the announcement of these envoys was made, were internally voted on, so as to place the most battle-capable ones in the room, because this could still go awfully wrong – and, of course, the two lords, together, ready to set out for the First City’s space docks.

You nod, make a half-bow, and the edge of Lord Hot Rod’s optics tighten, a little, but the familiarity and friendship the two of you enjoy is not appropriate for the occasion, not today: you are here in your capacity as the High Sacrator Deadlock, and he as the Lord Hot Rod, Chosen of Primus. Just Deadlock and Just Hot Rod are not making a public appearance.

That’s another thing you like about Aedis – the separation of public and private lives for those who hold important positions. If you go out dressed in your cloak, your jewellery, then you’re treated as the High Sacrator and Voice. If you go out without those, then you are just Deadlock, another private citizen of Aedis, and you can you sit in an oil house or walk through a public garden and no one will treat you as anything but.

It was one of the things Lord Hot Rod insisted on at the start, wanted embedded in the cultural understanding of Aedis’ society – that he while he was a mech on a pedestal, he was allowed to get off. All the others just followed his lead, though Lord Galvatron only very rarely indulges in pseudo-anonymity, and none have complained yet. You certainly aren’t.

The last of the chosen mecha arrive, and then the group of you set out for the docks, all of you polished and waxed and wearing whatever regalia sets out your Voice personas from your citizen ones. Mecha stare on the street, blue optics and red optics and all the other, rarer, colours. They know where you’re going. They know what you’re doing. And they’re hoping it’s not all about to backfire on everyone.

You have faith, however. Lord Hot Rod and Lord Galvatron are the opposite of weak, the opposite of stupid, and have the gods on their side besides.

Whatever games Optimus Prime and Lord Megatron might play – and it is still a _might –_ they won’t fall for them. Of that, you’re certain.

At the space docks, you arrange yourselves into a standard guard pattern, spread out around Lord Hot Rod and Lord Galvatron. As a gunner, you’re in the back, with mecha like Impactor, the Voice for the miners, who has pile-drivers that could smash a mech into parts, up nearer the front.

There’s a part of you that dislikes being so far from the two lords, but you’re able to do more for them from here, should it come to it, so you push it down and focus on the two shuttles carefully descending from the atmosphere, neither of them with external weaponry, as per the agreement. There’s a large Autobot symbol on one, a large Decepticon symbol on the other, and onboard will be the most powerful mecha in your war-torn world, save your two lords, who are in a class of their own.

The ships land roughly simultaneously on each side of the dock with a thump, lowering their ramps. It’s silent and still for a couple of minutes, and then the doors rattle open, and from the entryways, the leaders of the Autobots and Decepticons emerge, facing each other. It’s a tense moment, and for a second they look prepared to make the First City’s space docks their newest battlefield, but then the moment passes, and their optics turn to your group farther down the dock.

You watch as Starscream and Soundwave come up next to Lord Megatron’s left and right, as Prowl and Jazz flank Optimus Prime, and the high command of both sides descend down their ramps, eyeing each other, eyeing your group, and step pede down on Aedis for the first time.

“Welcome,” Lord Hot Rod says, more formal than you’ve ever heard him, “to Aedis.”

By his side, Lord Galvatron makes a non-committal grunt, lifting his head slightly, a predator sizing the mecha from Cybertron up. Even so, it’s a small movement, a low noise, and he’s still far away enough that his EM field isn’t reaching the – guests. Non-hostile, just about, but you know that the three Decepticons at least will have picked up on the fact that your lords are not naïve in their greeting, are ready to defend themselves should it come to it.

Optimus Prime inclines his head slightly. “We are honoured to be here,” he says, somewhat rote, but whatever. It _is_ an honour; he just doesn’t know how much of one, yet. The Autobot Prime rubs his chest absently.

Lord Megatron says nothing, staring for a moment at Impactor, before his gaze flicks over the rest of the group – and lands on _you._

“Deadlock?” he asks, stunned, and suddenly you are the focus of the gaze of the three Decepticons, Soundwave stilling, Starscream’s optics going wide.

“Lord Megatron,” you say, and you do not nod or bow, and neither do you call him _my lord._ You echo your new lord, instead: “Welcome to Aedis.”

–

_The first citizens seemingly spring up over-night, and you don’t mean that metaphorically._

_You retire to recharge in your hab one evening, and the next morning there are two new mecha onboard the small ship you’re all still living out of: Cyclonus and Scourge._

_Neither Galvatron nor Hot Rod act as though anything unexpected or unusual or strange has occurred, and by the way they act, Cyclonus and Scourge know the two well. It’s just you scrambling to catch up._

_Hot Rod does take pity on you, when he finally notices your disconcerted gaze from the doorway, taking you aside. “Remember the sparks in Galvatron’s hands?” he asks._

_You do, now. You can hardly believe that you forgot the shock of it, but – there was a lot happening that day. “Yes.”_

“ _Those were Cyclonus and Scourge,” Hot Rod says. “They’re Galvatron’s triad-mates.”_

_You don’t ask how they’re here, how Galvatron grasped their sparks in his hands, where the hell he kept them, all the usual questions. Going with the flow seems like the better option, when you’re surrounded by demi-gods._

_(You don’t have another word for what they are – **Chosen of Primus** and **Herald of Unicron** are titles. They are not normal mecha, not anymore, if they ever were in the first place.)_

“ _Hot Rod,” comes a voice from the doorway. It’s Cyclonus, the purple and silver jet with the sensory horns rising high from his helm. He’s the least unnerving looking of the two – Scourge just looks like a demon. And, with his triad-mate being the Herald of Unicron… maybe he **is.**_

“ _Just getting Deadlock up to speed,” Hot Rod says. “Nothing’s wrong. Tell Galvatron not to worry so much.”_

_Cyclonus hums, says, “I will try,” and leaves. You don’t really know what to say next, so you just nod to Hot Rod and take your leave._

_The next day, you find out that Scourge’s scanners are maybe-literally unholy, and that Cyclonus already has a ten-step plan for everything the settlement could possibly require. You don’t see Galvatron or Hot Rod ‘til the middle of the day, and, by the sounds coming from their hab, probably don’t want to._

–

You lead the guests through the First City, all the way to the House of Dawn and to the Echo Chamber, where all the other Voices are already assembled. There are six new seats in the central circle, and you take yours next to Lord Hot Rod, some of the others dispersing to the benches on the tiered levels of the auditorium-like chamber, not unlike the lecture theatre in the medical school Doctor Ambulon runs, though with more cushions.

Lord Hot Rod and Lord Galvatron sit in their usual seats, which are not thrones, but are still distinct from the rest. The central circle has an empty space in the middle, with a raised dais and a lectern with the symbol of Aedis emblazoned for any Voice who needs to make a speech to the whole Chamber, though the lectern has been stood to the side for today.

When everyone is seated and quiet, Lord Galvatron opens the session, voice stiff: “Voices of the Echo Chamber, today we meet to discuss the proposed treaty of non-interference set in motion by the Autobot Leader Optimus Prime and the Decepticon Emperor of Destruction Megatron. All Voices, acknowledge the agenda.”

“Acknowledged,” echo dozens of mecha at once. You see the guests’ optics widen a little at the acoustics of the Chamber, the unity of those within.

Optimus Prime clears his intake, rising to stand. “Mecha of – Aedis – my name is Optimus Prime, though I suspect you already know that. I have come to speak to you today of the Autobots residing here upon your planet, some of whom I can see in this room, who are missing from the ranks of my people – ”

“Yes, yes, we’re here,” interrupts Lifeline, who’s the Voice for the group of pacifist Autobots who joined Aedis from Paradron, and a medic besides. You count her and her bond-mate – one of the Autobot priestesses – as good friends of yours. Her optics narrow at the Prime. “Get on with it, Prime. There’s no time for dally in the Echo Chamber; we know you’re here to argue about turning all Autobots on Aedis back over to you, no matter if they want to go or not. And I suspect the Decepticon leadership is here for very similar reasons. Well?”

Optimus Prime clears his intake again, shifts awkwardly, and says, “Aedis has been luring soldiers away from both sides for nearly a million stellar cycles now. We are here to – peacefully – request that you cease and desist such actions – ”

Lord Galvatron barks out a laugh. He turns to Lord Hot Rod and jeers, “And this is supposed to be the mech who warbles for _peace?_ For _an end to the war?_ It’s right before his optics and he is still too blind to see! _Pathetic.”_

A twittering laugh circles around the Echo Chamber. You chuckle, too, though you feel the gaze of the Decepticon commanders upon you. The Autobots look taken aback, like they cannot conceive of Optimus Prime being interrupted.

“My Lord Galvatron,” you say, sitting forward a little, “I am afraid you may have to spell it out for them – Cybertron is, after all, quite removed from the rest of the galactic community. The poor mech has been fighting for five million years, and the energon shortage will have them all running low – it is likely his processor isn’t functioning at a one hundred per cent capacity.”

You can’t help being a _little_ mean to the Prime; the four million years of war you were around for still echo in your memory files, though with the distance Aedis has given you, you sympathise with Optimus Prime’s calls for peace a little more. Not enough to forget why the war happened in the first place, however. You don’t trust any peace treaty this mech puts together – he is, even with the best of intentions, too far removed from being able to empathise with Decepticon culture to understand why his proposals are constantly being rejected.

Lord Megatron shoots you a look, while Lord Galvatron laughs. “Deadlock,” your old friend says, standing up himself, coming around to stand closer to you, not quite looming, “you were once one of my most trusted. I thought you dead these past million years. Why have you deserted? What is here that keeps you?” _Why am I no longer your lord?_

“Lord Megatron,” you say, meeting his gaze, “what do you think Aedis is? I suspect that neither you nor the Autobot Prime took the time to _understand_ this place before you came to call the instant you tracked down where your mecha were disappearing to. Tell me that, first, and then I will tell you why I left.”

Lord Megatron narrows his optics. “I thought it was a refuge of cowards and deserters, eking out a living through trading scraps. I was proved wrong when I looked upon it in orbit, and more so when I saw your face, and was escorted through the – First City? There are Decepticons here, many of them. I saw them. I know their faces, and I know they are not cowards – but _I_ am the Emperor, and I _do_ demand answers! What trap is this?”

“I, too, would like to know,” Optimus Prime echoes.

“Well,” says Lord Hot Rod, sitting back and flexing his spoiler wings a little, drawing attention back to him, “that _is_ a tale. Not a trap, however. Let us talk, then. Let the Voices speak – and, I tell you this _once,_ Optimus, Megatron: here, we _listen.”_

–

“ _You said you were a Prime.”_

_Hot Rod flinches. You feel a bit guilty for that – he has been a steadfast companion so far, one you think you might call **friend** sooner or later – but you **need to know.**_

“ _Yes,” Hot Rod answers, “once.”_

“ _That’s not an answer,” you say, because it’s what he said before. “How? What happened?”_

“ _Deadlock.” He looks so tired. “I was a Prime in a time not yet come to pass, which is now forever lost. Optimus was my **predecessor.** Galvatron – well. He lost me, and he decided to fight it. So now we’re here.”_

“ _That’s…” You were going to say **impossible,** but that word has a different meaning with mecha like the Chosen and the Herald around. “I am glad,” you settle on, because whatever – new future – is being forged, it’s one you think you want._

_Hot Rod cycles a deep vent. “Primus is trying,” he says, apropos of nothing in your mind, but you’re not really in the loop regarding a lot of the things Hot Rod and Galvatron talk about. “It’s better than before, now. This new path is new for all of us, untrodden, but. We’re going to **make it better.”**_

“ _So – you were not placed here for such a task?” you ask, because that has been your assumption up ‘til now: that Primus made or chose Hot Rod to create this neutral settlement._

_Hot Rod laughs a little. “No,” he says, “not placed here, but – still blessed. Galvatron just had to shout a little, first.” He tilts his head. "What about you?" he asks. "What will you build here?"_

_"What do you mean?" you ask._

_Hot Rod shrugs a little, gestures about to the air in general. "Will you establish a temple? Create a new branch of the Sacratores? Just keep your practices private? You have options, Deadlock. We're certainly not here to tell you what to do with your new life."_

_You shift in place a little. You haven't yet really thought about it. "I... don't know, yet," you admit. "I would think on it more, and besides - we are not yet at the point where anything that's not essential resource related is available for founding. One can pray anywhere, you don't need a temple; Primus will hear. They're a community thing, but - we don't yet have a community, and when we do, they need fuel to eat and places to live more immediately than they would need a place to worship."_

_Hot Rod snorts softly. "There's that Decepticon practicality," he praises. "You know, one of the first things that always goes up when the Autobots establish somewhere is a chapel of some kind, and it's - caused friction, before, when resources were scarce. There was this one time - " He cuts himself off, shakes his head, glances at you. "Ah, that doesn't matter. It's not to be."_

_You squint at him, because there's something here, and all your instincts are pricking up, telling you so..._

_Hot Rod tilts his head when you stay silent for a moment too long, and - **Oh,** you think. He looks so **young.** Just one moment, the light hitting his soft face and blue optics just so, the way his spoiler is twitching with restrained curiosity, but that's all it takes to rearrange some things in your head. _

_You decide to prod a little. "Are you familiar with Decepticon religious practices?" you ask. "Or only Autobot ones?" He has no Autobot symbol, but - maybe, once, in a time not yet come to pass, and now forever lost..._

_"No," Hot Rod admits, and it's a little ashamed, a little frustrated, "and Galvatron isn't exactly, er, big on that sort of thing. I mean. Chosen of him or not, appreciate his efforts or not, me and Primus have some - issues. But. I do like hymns and stuff. I like the stories. I just - don't worry. It's not really relevant."_

_"Would you like to hear some of mine?" you ask, quietly, and you make the offer earnestly, you do. His youthful eagerness to learn has been disguised by exhaustion, by something too great to bear, weighing him down, and you know you can hardly imagine what it is to be **Chosen,** to be a **Prime,** but - it must be heavy, those expectations, those responsibilities._

_And, true to your expectations, he pauses, glances at the door as though someone were to come in and interrupt, or else forbid him from accepting the offer. You wait._

_Finally, a somewhat shy and hopeful smile tilts his lips, and he asks, like he's not sure he's allowed, as if anyone could tell the Chosen One what to do, "Tell me?"_

–

It’s hours before the Echo Chamber adjourns, to reconvene the day after next. Tomorrow, the Autobot and Decepticon commanders will be shown around a little of the First City, to prove that all that was said in the Chamber today is true.

Optimus Prime still looks a bit stunned – you think that he thought there would be no peace amongst the Cybertronians without him at the head of the movement. He has little of true arrogance in him, you concede, and what with being the Prime, his assumption is hardly a stretch, but –

No matter. You have something – _someone_ – better, now.

You help escort the visitors to their rooms, guest quarters kept in the House of Trade for visiting merchants and negotiators of deals. Data-pads full of the laws of Aedis have been set in the rooms, so that they can see the proof that equality and equity is upheld here. Prowl picks some up and puts them in his subspace as he and Jazz briefly investigate the hab before returning to the corridor – you have yet to show them the dining hall, and it is getting to the evening fuel time.

Optimus Prime rubs his chest plate again, as Lord Hot Rod shows him to the hab suite one door up from his subordinates. “You…” he says, confusedly.

Lord Hot Rod raises an optical ridge. “Yes?”

Beneath Optimus Prime’s hand, golden light seeps out from his armour seams. _The Matrix of Leadership,_ you think, a little awed, as everyone’s gaze catches on it.

In the shine of the Matrix light – _Primal Light,_ you remember it being called, all that time ago – Lord Hot Rod’s glyphs resonate in response, scrolling across his frame. For a moment, you think you can see the shadow of someone else, like a hologram superimposed over Lord Hot Rod – they look like him, a lot, but bigger, heftier, more tired and more pained, their shoulder pauldrons weighed down with a duty too heavy to bear alone.

“Rodimus Prime,” Optimus Prime stutters, out, pressing his hand against his chest harder, taking a step back. Prowl and Jazz in-vent sharply, their faces a mask of shock, and the Decepticon commanders are no different.

Lord Hot Rod stiffens, and Lord Galvatron growls. The light from beneath Optimus Prime’s chest fades, though Lord Hot Rod’s glyphs still shine, the illusion of Rodimus Prime fading away.

“How…?” Optimus Prime asks, looking like some foundational pillar of his world-view has crumbled.

“I am _not_ Rodimus Prime,” Lord Hot Rod ascertains, “… anymore.”

“He is the Chosen of Primus,” you say, “and Aedis is what Cybertron _should_ be like.”

Lord Megatron growls, low in his chest. “So that’s it?” he says, angry. “We’re supposed to all just bow down and accept the _Autobot_ ways?”

“No,” Lord Hot Rod says, firm. He gestures to Lord Galvatron. “My spark-mate was once a Decepticon, and Aedis is a place for all cultures. There is no – Autobot rule, or bias of those values in our societal infrastructure. The House of Unity – opposite this building – deals with internal concerns – from civil rights to education curriculums to who repairs the roads – and holds a council of equal Autobot and Decepticon numbers. We have done our best to build a place free of discrimination, and to stamp it out wherever we find it lurking – of this, you have my word. Whatever you think the word of the Chosen is worth.”

“Lord Megatron,” you say, his red optics burning upon you now, “I have been here since the very beginning – it is true. If you will not take Lord Hot Rod’s word – then take mine, as your old friend.”

Lord Megatron looks at you, intense the way he always is, like how Lord Galvatron is, like he’s picking you apart by gaze alone. He nods, after a moment, and says, “I would speak with you later, if – if you are amenable.”

You nod. “I would like that,” you say, and you would. You love your new life here on Aedis, but – old friends, friends of millions of years, are not easily forgotten in the spark.

“Shall we continue, now that that bit of drama is over?” Lord Galvatron scowls, gesturing down the corridor. Lord Hot Rod chuckles a little, the glyphs on his frame fading slowly with every minute that passes.

The group continues to be shown to their quarters – in the interest of peace, the Autobots and Decepticons have been placed in two entirely different wings of the building, and the guards that stand by the doors are silent but very present.

“There’s fuel swirled with cobalt and silver shavings in the dining hall,” you say, low, to Lord Megatron, recalling, easier than you thought you would considering how old the memory files are, his preferences. Oh, it’s been a long time since this war began, and you can hear the slightly too loud buzzing of his internals from here. Good fuel will help fix that.

Lord Megatron tilts his head to you, but says nothing, red optics observing everything keenly, with a gaze you do not feel is that of a tactician searching out weaknesses. You could still be wrong, of course, but something has shifted since his view at the start of the day, and you hold hope fiercely in your chest, guiding it to Primus with a silent prayer.

–

_The first citizens who are not time-travelling triad-mates of Galvatron’s arrive from a place called Paradron, where Hot Rod says a small enclave of pacifistic Autobots set up shop at the start of the war. Decepticon conditioning has you wanting to call them cowards for running from the fighting, but –_

_But you suppose there’s a bravery, too, in denying a mech your culture says is meant to be obeyed absolutely. In sticking to your beliefs, however strange they are to your own understanding._

_The Paradrons choose a medic named Lifeline to represent them. She’s compassionate and gentle, but with every meeting talking with Galvatron – who listens to her and still grumps – she gets better at saying what she means without trying to appease, and eventually even interrupts and cuts you off when you’re reporting in to accuse you of avoiding the small medical centre that’s sprung up._

“ _It’s only a misaligned gear,” you defend, confused. “My self-repair will be done with it in two days.”_

_Hot Rod chuckles when Lifeline berates you and looms over you in your chair, opening your elbow joint and fixing the gear right there in the meeting room._

_Galvatron just looks perversely proud, and states that he’s glad Lifeline has finally left pathetic wavering behind, and that she should **tell** people what to do, it’ll get her further in life._

_You assure Lifeline that that’s a compliment, and find yourself strangely looking forward to when more citizens will arrive. The Paradrons’ way of life is still strange to you, but – not offensive, and they no longer flinch when you walk by. You like that._

_You like it a lot._

–

After dinner, you walk with Lord Megatron back to his guest suite. Lord Hot Rod pings you with a private comm message, wishing you luck, before he and Lord Galvatron retire, leaving the House of Trade to head back to what Lord Hot Rod continually refuses to call the Palace and Lord Galvatron smugly does.

“Deadlock,” Megatron sighs, when the door slides shut, and he really is just Megatron now, the title of _lord_ shed in private. He places his hands on your shoulders, grips them a little tight, and says, “I mourned you, old friend.”

You place your hands over his. “I am sorry that you did,” you say softly, “but I’m not sorry for my actions. I only hope that you will come to understand why I took them. Aedis is – I cannot leave it, Megatron. This is my _home.”_

“And they are your lords?” Megatron asks, astutely.

“Yes,” you say, and for a moment you pause under the weight of what that means. You guide Megatron to the sofa in the sitting area, the holoscreen on the wall dark, the standing lamp needing but a wireless ping to turn on. “Megatron,” you say carefully, “you are my friend. I still count you as dear to me. But I cannot bow to you when I follow _them._ You are still a lord of Decepticons. _I_ am still a Decepticon, still a Sacrator. I respect your authority, but I am no longer yours to command. I do not regret in any way the millennia I followed you, but – Aedis is the future, and the Chosen lights the way for all of us.”

Megatron stays silent for a moment. “He truly is the leader Primus chose?”

You nod your head. “Yes.” Then, after a moment, you say, “This is what we were fighting for. This is what we all bled and cried and _died_ for – it is no Decepticon Empire, no Autobot Civilisation, it is _better._ Tomorrow, please, let me show you – Aedis is worth treating with, is worth _reaching out_ for. We’ve done it here – you can do it back on Cybertron. Let the Prime see as well – this is what _peace_ looks like.”

Megatron hums, clasps his hands together, and says, “You want a ceasefire to happen. A peace treaty.” His lips quirk. “A non-interference agreement won’t work, will it? You don’t have to lure – they come anyway.” He looks up at the ceiling. “I suppose even the greatest of warriors grow tired of battle.”

“There is the Defence Force,” you point out. “Accommodations have been made for all frame types that have combat coding, those who _need_ to fight. I won’t say it’s not been an adjustment on everyone’s parts, but – that’s just a learning curve everyone who comes here goes through. But it’s worth it, I swear.”

“… Are you happy here?” Megatron asks quietly.

“Very,” you say. He shutters his optics, glances out the window to the lights of the First City, the darkness of Aedis’ short nights deep, only broken by the street lamps. He turns back to you, cycles a deep vent, and sits back a little in the sofa.

“One last question,” Megatron says, looking tired, “why is there what seems to be a giant mech’s head orbiting this planet as a moon?”

You can’t help it. You laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that, everyone! I wanted to end it on a hopeful note - timeline wise, this epilogue is happening at roughly the same time that the G1 'Bots and 'Cons would be setting off to search for energon and end up in four million years of stasis-lock. And now they have a third path.
> 
> The name Aedis is taken from the Latin: aedis is a word that means "temple/shrine; tomb; room; dwelling (of gods) in the singular; house/abode (for people) in the plural." It's not a democracy, because until IDW, Cybertron has _never_ been ruled by a democracy, not even the Autobots. It's still a damn sight closer to it than before, though, even if Hot Rod and Galvatron are very much the rulers. 
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](https://stairre.tumblr.com/). Come and say hello!


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